Law360, New York (May 12, 2015, 10:10 AM EDT) -- The Ninth Circuit has held that the local event exception to federal court jurisdiction for mass tort state law actions under the Class Action Fairness Act[1] is limited to actions arising from singular happenings, such as a single chemical spill or single explosion. This places the Ninth Circuit in direct conflict with the Third Circuit, which previously held that the local event exception extends to actions arising from continuous sets of circumstances that could be characterized collectively as an event, such as multiple releases of chemicals into the environment. By substantially narrowing the local event exception to federal jurisdiction, the Ninth Circuit has eased the way for defendants to remove toxic tort suits filed in state court to federal court....