Our toxic tort and environmental tort experience includes:

• Defending numerous claims for cleanup costs and property damage brought under federal and state statutes, contracts and tort law arising from subsurface contamination and alleged indoor air contamination- for example, defending the former owner of a West Virginia silicone manufacturing facility in federal court in the Northern District of New York against statutory and common-law claims arising from alleged PCB contamination brought by the facility’s current owner.
• Preparing for trial in five toxic tort cases claiming developmental injuries suffered by a child allegedly as a consequence of lead exposure through drinking water.
• Serving as national counsel for Sunoco in all litigation related to the presence of the gasoline additive methyl tertiary-butyl ether (MTBE) in water supplies, including more than 140 suits brought by states, municipalities, public water systems, and private well owners, the majority of which we helped our client settle.
• Defending a major power company against allegations that byproducts present in the environment from historic power generation operations caused leukemia contracted by adult users of a nearby recreational area, as well as a child in utero, in the District of Columbia Superior Court.
• Serving as trial counsel for a major chemical company when it was sued under various product liability and hazardous waste remediation theories related to the sale of a dry cleaning solvent it manufactured, obtaining  defense verdicts at 43 out of 45 dry cleaning sites and settlement credits for all remaining liability against our client—resulting in our client owing no damages.
• Defending numerous citizen suits under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), prevailing in one on a motion to dismiss on primary jurisdiction grounds in a putative class action brought by approximately 100 property owners alleging perchlorate contamination of drinking water.
• Defending the owner of a shopping mall against allegations that gasoline from a service station at the mall contaminated the potable wells and impaired the property value of more than two dozen households, posing a threat of cancer to the more-than-70 plaintiffs involving multiple expert disciplines such as oncology, toxicology, hydrogeology, environmental fate and transport, standards of care applicable to shopping mall owners, and land valuation issues.
• Defending a major utility company against lawsuits alleging damage from ash placement, including assertions of damage from groundwater impacts from ash leachate, one of which was dismissed on summary judgment that was later upheld on appeal.
• Securing a defense summary judgment on nuisance and toxic tort claims regarding land application at a Pennsylvania farm.
• Defending a toxic tort suit brought against a municipal water agency’s biosolids land application contractor and securing dismissal of some claims and settled the case with a public statement by plaintiffs disavowing any links between biosolids and illness.
• Obtaining a favorable settlement and full insurance coverage in a suit alleging lead-based paint poisoning, after challenging the plaintiff’s case in discovery.
• Representing a major oil refiner in a statewide putative class action in Florida alleging damage to boats from ethanol in gasoline.
• Acting as counsel for a national chemical manufacturer in several cases in California state court in which public entities or private well owners have alleged that our client and other manufacturers and distributors of perchloroethylene were responsible for soil and groundwater contamination securing a favorable outcome after the first two phases of trial and eliminating future compensatory damages and punitive damages against our client at certain sites.
• Defending two large companies in a lawsuit in which the Water Authority of Western Nassau County, New York alleged that our clients were responsible for volatile organic compounds that had migrated into the Water Authority’s well water.
• Defending a major U.S. corporation in a wrongful death suit alleging that biosolids applied on a farm caused toxic emissions that caused the death of a nearby resident.
• Defending a major chemical company against claims that an elevator maintenance worker contracted several lung-related diseases through exposure to carbon dust.
• Winning the dismissal of a nationwide class action by a group of water treatment facilities alleging that our client’s herbicide had contaminated their water supplies.
• Convincing plaintiffs to dismiss their nationwide class action alleging injury from occupational exposure to a widely used herbicide, after discovery.
• Winning dismissal of a multidistrict, multimillion-dollar class action toxic tort and CERCLA case by summary judgment before answering and before the case was consolidated in plaintiffs’ selected forum.
• Winning a verdict dismissing an asbestos wrongful death suit brought by the estate of a former shipyard worker diagnosed with malignant mesothelioma, a virulent cancer of the lining of the lungs.