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November 06, 2026
HONOLULU — Following a three-day trial, a Hawaii federal judge found moot a Cleans Water Act (CWA) claim brought by a group of individuals and the environmental group they belong to against the U.S. Navy, finding in favor of the Navy and holding that at the time of trial, the Navy established there was “no reasonable likelihood” that it would “release fuel into” Pearl Harbor or Hālawa Stream or that CWA violations could “reasonably be expected to reoccur.”
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November 06, 2026
PITTSBURGH — The widower and children of a woman who became ill and died after allegedly being exposed to benzene from hydraulic fracturing operations near her family home filed an amended complaint in Pennsylvania federal court against a fracking company that operated wells less than a mile from the home, alleging that it previously told community members its fracking operations would not produce toxic emissions.
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November 06, 2026
EUGENE, Ore. — A federal judge in Oregon denied the federal government’s motion to dismiss and found that claims were sufficient to move forward with a woman’s lawsuit alleging injury from the government’s alleged failure to remediate mold in U.S. Coast Guard housing.
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November 04, 2026
CHARLESTON, S.C. — 3M announced Nov. 3 that it has reached an agreement to make a $7.35 billion pretax nominal commitment to be paid over nine years to settle more than 100,000 per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)-related personal injury claims in and outside the aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) multidistrict litigation (MDL) in a federal court in South Carolina.
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November 03, 2026
LOS ANGELES — A California federal judge on Nov. 2 refused to reconsider an order denying an insurer’s motion for certification for interlocutory appeal after determining that reconsideration is not warranted based on another California federal judge’s recent decisions certifying interlocutory appeals in similar silica exposure coverage suits because the other decisions are nonprecedential and do not provide sufficient grounds for reconsideration of the insurer’s motion for certification of interlocutory appeal in the instant suit.
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November 03, 2026
LANSING, Mich. — Insurers involved in a coverage dispute stemming from lead-contaminated water supplied by an insured city in their reply in support of a motion for partial summary judgment continue to deny that they have a duty to defend or indemnify their insured for a $25 million consent settlement reached by the city and underlying plaintiffs, maintaining that the policies’ lead and pollution exclusions apply as a bar to coverage.
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November 02, 2026
ATLANTA — The 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals reversed a trial court’s judgment against Monsanto Co. on a Roundup user’s Florida tort claim, finding after the U.S. Supreme Court granted Monsanto’s petition for a writ of certiorari and remanded for further consideration that Monsanto Co. v. Durnell “dispositively resolves the only issue for appeal in Monsanto’s favor.”
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November 02, 2026
NEW ORLEANS — A trial court did not abuse its discretion in excluding the causation opinions of two experts proffered by a Deepwater Horizon oil spill cleanup worker in a case alleging worsening asthma from exposure to toxic substances, a split Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled, upholding the summary judgment ruling for BP Exploration & Production Inc. and BP America Production Co. (together, BP).
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November 02, 2026
CHICAGO — The Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals dismissed a chemical manufacturer’s appeal of a class certification ruling in a lead exposure lawsuit following the manufacturer’s filing of an unopposed voluntary motion to dismiss.
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October 30, 2026
GRETNA, La. — A panel of the Louisiana Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal denied an application for a supervisory writ following a lower court’s denial of a state agency’s exception of no cause of action in a lawsuit filed by a former state employee who says she was exposed to mold and asbestos while working in a state office building.
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October 30, 2026
ST. LOUIS — A Missouri jury on Oct. 29 returned a verdict in favor of Monsanto Co. on claims by three individuals who alleged that their or their decedents’ non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) was caused by use of Roundup products containing glyphosate; the verdict was filed nearly a week after a Missouri judge partially granted and partially denied Monsanto’s motion for directed verdict.
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October 30, 2026
LOS ANGELES — More than 340 plaintiffs have filed a lawsuit and are seeking an injunction against the manufacturers, distributors and a retailer of Carefree feminine hygiene products in a California court, alleging that they failed to protect consumers from or warn them about exposure to perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), a type of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS), in the products.
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October 29, 2026
CINCINNATI — The Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied the United States’ petition for permission to appeal two trial court orders denying its motions to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction claims by Flint, Mich., residents in a consolidated Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) lawsuit alleging negligence on the part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency when responding to the city’s water crisis, which arose after the city switched the source of its water supply.
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October 28, 2026
OXFORD, Miss. — Six cases accusing companies associated with a facility in Water Valley, Miss., of “poisoning the people, environment, and the community” with trichloroethylene (TCE) vapors were the latest in more than a dozen to be remanded by a federal judge in Mississippi for lack of jurisdiction.
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October 28, 2026
NEWARK, N.J. — Consumers who allege that they suffered hair loss after using TRESemmé shampoo and/or conditioner containing DMDM hydantoin filed substantially similar complaints in a federal court in New Jersey after a judge ruled that “individual and separate [c]omplaints” were needed as the plaintiffs were “improperly joined.”
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October 28, 2026
HONOLULU — The Hawaii Supreme Court in a ruling addressing a nearly three-decade-long pesticide exposure case by banana plantation workers said the appropriate approach to causation in mass toxic tort cases is set out in comment g in Section 26 of the Restatement (Third) of Torts: Liability for Physical and Emotional Harm, but that the three factors must be considered in a different order.
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October 28, 2026
HOUSTON — A business development manager sued her employer in a Texas court alleging injury and retaliation after she filed a workers’ compensation claim in connection with injuries she alleged that she suffered after being told during a training tour of a Wyoming facility to place her head into multiple frac tanks without any personal protective equipment (PPE).
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October 27, 2026
INDIANAPOLIS — An Indiana federal judge granted a motion by a trio of companies linked to E.I. duPont De Nemours and Co. accused of fraudulently transferring assets to avoid liability for litigation pertaining to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) environmental contamination pending a Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML or JPMDL) decision on the companies’ motion to transfer the cases to a pending PFAS-related MDL.
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October 27, 2026
CHICAGO — In a pair of rulings in a multidistrict litigation in which consumers allege wrongful death and other injuries from endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) in chemical hair relaxers (CHRs), a federal judge in Illinois stated that the parties agreed on the final five bellwether cases and, addressing a motion to exclude the 10 general causation experts, partly denied the motion as to two of the experts presented by the consumers.
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October 26, 2026
PORTLAND, Ore. — Amazon Data Services (ADS) and a group of residents from in and around the Lower Umatilla Basin separately filed oppositions on Oct. 23 to omnibus motions filed by the Port of Morrow, agricultural companies, food processors and an electric utility to compel discovery or modify a stay in two related putative class action suits in Oregon federal court alleging violations of state law and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) over alleged groundwater contamination.
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October 26, 2026
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — On remand from the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals and after the U.S. Supreme Court denied a petition for a writ of certiorari brought by Union Carbide Corp. and an affiliate, a West Virginia federal judge denied a plaintiff’s motion to certify a class of approximately 37,000 people allegedly exposed to ethylene oxide (EtO) and denied her motion to redefine the class as based on a “blatantly false” argument.
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October 22, 2026
CHICAGO — An insurer has no duty to defend or indemnify its insureds for an underlying lead paint bodily injury suit because the policies’ lead contamination exclusions clearly apply to relieve the insurer of any duty to defend or indemnify, an Illinois federal judge said in granting the insurer’s motion for judgment on the pleadings.
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October 22, 2026
CINCINNATI — A Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel in a divided decision enabled a putative class action lawsuit to proceed against nine Michigan corrections officials but ruled that five others were entitled to immunity on certain claims in a lawsuit alleging that they had knowledge of but failed to remediate mold at a women’s prison, which has allegedly sickened multiple inmates.
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October 20, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal magistrate judge dismissed with prejudice an insured’s claims against an insurer for breach of contract, bad faith and declaratory relief following the parties’ settlement of a dispute over insurance coverage for underlying suits related to exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) allegedly contained in aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) that was manufactured and sold by the insured.
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October 20, 2026
LANSING, Mich. — In response to a motion for partial summary judgment filed in Michigan federal court by insurers in a coverage dispute stemming from lead-contaminated water supplied by an insured city, the underlying plaintiffs say the city’s insurers have a duty to defend the city and pay for the $25 million consent settlement reached by the city and underlying plaintiffs as consequential damages because the insurers failed to show that no coverage is afforded for the underlying class actions filed against the city.