A Saginaw County judge ruled this week that a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision means that property owners in the dioxin-contaminated Tittabawasee floodplain cannot sue Dow Chemical for damages in a class action. Operations at Dow’s Midland plant have spread dioxin — a highly toxic and cancer-causing byproduct of...chemical manufacturing...—...through the Tittabawassee and Saginaw Rivers... Flooding...downstream from Dow has deposited dioxin-laden sediments on properties... Sampling...has revealed dioxin contamination at levels thousands of times higher than allowed...and prompted state health officials to warn residents to keep children from playing in dirt near their homes...[and] to avoid eating fish and livestock raised in the floodplain... Dow has acknowledged that the dioxin contamination came from its operations but insists that it is not harmful... [Judge] Borello...said that the case met the Michigan guidelines for class standards but that the recent U.S. Supreme Court case Wal-Mart v. Dukes has created new rules... Plaintiffs’ attorney Teresa Woody said...“We think that if the state has its own certification rules then the Dukes case does not apply.”