Underscoring the importance of pleading actual injury in a toxic tort class action, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit dismissed Oklahoma class claims that were based only on “reasonable concern” of future injury...more
In a case that may make it easier to prove causation in Maryland lead paint cases, the Maryland Court of Appeals held that neither direct evidence of the source of lead nor expert testimony was necessary when a trier of fact...more
In perhaps the most well-publicized environmental release incident since Deepwater Horizon, Southern California Gas Co. faces a number of toxic tort-based lawsuits stemming from a natural gas leak at one of its storage wells...more
In a case of first impression that may clarify the duty of care in secondary exposure claims in North Dakota, the state’s highest court rejected claims based on childhood exposure to asbestos brought home on an insulation...more
In a victory for toxic tort class action plaintiffs, an Iowa trial court certified a class covering approximately 4,000 residents who alleged property damages due to air emissions from a nearby corn milling plant. See...more
In a case that may have implications for chemical warning laws, a federal court in New York found a town’s efforts to require warning labels on pesticide-treated utility poles compelled non-commercial speech and infringed on...more
In what may be part of a wave of litigation blaming increased seismicity on oil and gas development activities, 12 residents of Oklahoma City and its suburbs filed suit against oil and gas drillers and operators of wastewater...more
Demonstrating the importance of expert causation evidence, a Pennsylvania appellate court refused a landowner’s request to reopen a case alleging chemicals from a natural gas drilling operation contaminated the landowner’s...more
In a decision that may leave facilities open to private tort liability despite compliance with federal Clean Air Act (CAA) requirements, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit concluded that the CAA does not preempt...more
An Ohio federal jury in October handed out the first verdict in multi-district litigation (“MDL”) against E.I. DuPont de Nemours and Co. related to ammonium perfluorooctanoate, or C-8, in drinking water around DuPont’s...more
The judge in a petroleum exposure case will allow a jury to decide whether a gas station operator and its environmental consultant recklessly failed to inform a plumber of the risks of working in an excavated pit with a...more
In a ruling that underscores the difficulty of securing class certification in toxic tort cases involving fear of contamination claims, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reversed a Missouri federal...more
Reinforcing the requirement for expert testimony to support toxic tort personal injury claims under Texas law, a Texas appellate court held that claims for damages due to “symptoms caused by discomfort” do not fall within the...more
In a ruling that further delineates the threshold for maintaining private nuisance and trespass claims in New Jersey, the state’s highest court held that defendant landowners were not liable for contamination to neighboring...more
In a case that tested a federal judge’s patience for inadequate pleadings, a Michigan federal court shut down a group of business owners’ repeated attempts to craft viable tort claims against an oil refinery in a...more
Chastising the Plaintiffs for forum shopping, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit upheld a district court’s decision to dismiss a matter with prejudice on the grounds that the Plaintiffs had previously...more
Underscoring the importance of sound science in expert opinions, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit upheld the exclusion of expert testimony that did not adequately draw or extrapolate from reliable...more
A West Virginia federal court certified a class for purposes of determining Defendants’ liability for a chemical spill that disrupted the water supply for approximately 300,000 residents in the Charleston area. Good v. Am....more
Potentially opening the door for litigation that seeks to tie deep-well injection of hydraulic fracturing flowback and other wastewater to damage caused by earthquakes, the Oklahoma Supreme Court unanimously held that state...more
8/6/2015
/ Causation ,
Corporations Commission ,
Dismissals ,
Earthquakes ,
Exclusive Jurisdiction ,
Fracking ,
Jurisdiction ,
Negligence ,
Oil & Gas ,
OK Supreme Court ,
Proximate Cause ,
Reversal ,
State Law Tort Claims ,
Underground Injection Wells ,
Wastewater
An Ohio federal district court gave E.I. DuPont de Nemours and Co. a partial victory in litigation over ammonium perfluorooctanoate (“C-8”) drinking water contamination in Ohio and West Virginia by granting partial summary...more
8/5/2015
/ Abnormally Dangerous Activities ,
Battery ,
Chemical Spills ,
Civil Conspiracy ,
Contamination ,
Drinking Water ,
DuPont ,
Manufacturers ,
Multidistrict Litigation ,
Negligence Per Se ,
Pain and Suffering ,
Private Right of Action ,
Summary Judgment ,
Trespass ,
Wrongful Death
Issuing an opinion that could lower the bar for proving toxic tort causation, the Michigan Court of Appeals held that direct expert testimony may not be necessary to prove causation in a toxic tort case and that a plaintiff...more
In a ruling that could broaden parent company exposure to suit in West Virginia, the Southern District of West Virginia found that it had personal jurisdiction over the out-of-state parent company of an in-state water company...more
Creating a Circuit split, the Ninth Circuit held that a tort case against a Washington corporation did not fall under the so-called “local event” exception to the Class Action Fairness Act (“CAFA”) and, therefore, had been...more
8/5/2015
/ CAFA ,
Chemicals ,
Contamination ,
Environmental Liability ,
Hazardous Substances ,
Local Event Exception ,
Manufacturers ,
Negligence ,
Remediation ,
Removal ,
Split of Authority
In an opinion that may help clarify the jurisdictional and pleading requirements for plaintiffs seeking damages and injunctive relief for alleged injuries from vapor intrusion, the federal district court in Minnesota denied a...more
State common law tort claims based on air emissions from a power plant are not preempted by the federal Clean Air Act (CAA), according to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky. The court agreed to...more