Environmental Litigation

Environmental claims sit at the intersection of public health regulation and private litigation. Because the harm is usually dispersed and slow to appear, the cases take forms that other litigation does not:

• Mass exposure claims, where thousands of people allege the same contaminant reached them.
• Public-nuisance and natural-resource claims brought by governments rather than individuals.
• Property and remediation claims, where the claim is the cost of cleaning up rather than a personal injury.
• Product claims, where exposure came through a specific product such as firefighting foam or a herbicide.

Agency standards matter in all of them. Federal and state health advisories, maximum contaminant levels, and EPA determinations supply the benchmarks that complaints quote, and they change over time. Every article here says which standard it is relying on, when it was set, and whether it is a health advisory rather than an enforceable limit.

Current articles

• AFFF and PFAS firefighting foam litigation covers the consolidated claims over aqueous film-forming foam, the drinking-water cases, and the 2023 announced settlements involving 3M and other manufacturers.
• Asbestos and mesothelioma litigation covers the longest-running mass tort in the United States: the regulatory record, the claims’ structure, and why trust funds now administer much of the compensation.

Related sections: product liability for consumer and industrial products, and medical device litigation.