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September 08, 2026
DALLAS — A Texas federal judge held that a man who alleges that metal-on-metal hip implants caused metallosis can pursue product liability claims that otherwise would be barred by Texas’ 15-year statute of repose, finding that the alleged condition could fall within the statute’s latent disease exception and denying the hip implant manufacturers’ motion for judgment on the pleadings.
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September 08, 2026
CLEVELAND — A primary insurer has no duty to defend or indemnify its insured in underlying lawsuits stemming from exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) because the policies’ occupational disease exclusion clearly applies as a bar to coverage, an Ohio federal judge said in granting the primary insurer’s motion for summary judgment and denying the insured’s motion for summary judgment.
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September 08, 2026
LOS ANGELES — A California federal judge granted an additional two motions for certification of interlocutory appeals filed by insurers in two silica exposure coverage suits after again determining that a “substantial ground for difference of opinion” exists under California law between the concurrent causation doctrine and anti-concurrent causation clauses used in the insurers’ policies.
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September 04, 2026
CINCINNATI — A trial court acted within its discretion when it denied Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60 motions for relief from the personal injury payment releases filed by class members who settled claims over a chemical release that occurred after a train derailed in Ohio in February 2023, Norfolk Southern Railway Co. and Norfolk Southern Corp. (together, Norfolk Southern) and class counsel on behalf of the settlement class argue in appellee briefs filed in the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Aug. 26 and Sept. 3, respectively.
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September 04, 2026
CHICAGO — An Illinois federal jury returned a verdict in favor of a manufacturer of infant formula that allegedly caused preterm infants to develop necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) in one of a series of bellwether trials to be held in a multidistrict litigation (MDL).
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September 04, 2026
AUSTIN, Texas — No coverage is owed to an additional insured seeking coverage for hundreds of underlying silica personal injury suits because the silica and total pollution exclusions in primary and excess policies bar coverage, an insurer says in a complaint filed in Texas federal court.
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September 04, 2026
EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. — An Illinois federal judge remanded to state court a suit brought by the estate of a smoker who died from bladder cancer against a tobacco company and an Illinois chemical company where the smoker formerly worked and was allegedly exposed to hazardous chemicals, after finding that the chemical company was not fraudulently joined to destroy diversity jurisdiction.
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September 03, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A man who says he developed cancer after exposure to the active ingredient in Roundup and who was awarded a $28 million combined award against the herbicide manufacturer filed a three-page brief on Sept. 2 responding to Monsanto Co.’s petition for a writ of certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court stating that he “does not oppose the disposition the petition requests, which would leave it to the California Court of Appeal to apply [Monsanto Co. v. Durnell] to this record in the first instance.”
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September 02, 2026
LOS ANGELES — An insurer has a duty to defend its insured against an underlying personal injury suit stemming from a claimant’s exposure to hydrogen sulfide gas because the insurer failed to show that the pollution exclusion in its policy applies as a bar to coverage, a California federal judge said in partially granting the insured’s motion for summary judgment.
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September 01, 2026
LOS ANGELES — A California federal judge granted motions for certification of interlocutory appeal filed by insurers in two separate silica exposure coverage suits after determining that a substantial ground for difference of opinion exists under California law between the concurrent causation doctrine and anti-concurrent causation clauses used in the insurers’ policies.
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August 31, 2026
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — A federal judge in Puerto Rico adopted a magistrate judge’s recommendation and severed claims against three medical sterilization facilities named as defendants in a proposed class action, creating separate suits against each of the three sterilization facilities, which allegedly released ethylene oxide (EtO). The judge said separate suits will eliminate any prejudice to the defendants that could result if all the claims are tried together.
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August 28, 2026
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Finding that “the court cannot reconsider a ruling it never made” regarding costs and fees for discovery proceedings, a federal judge in Virginia denied a motion to reconsider a ruling partially granting and denying a motion in limine to exclude proposed evidence of chemical testing in a wrongful death case involving a woman who died after alleged exposure to toxic dyes in recalled slip-on shoes.
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August 28, 2026
SANTA ANA, Calif. — A federal judge in California granted an application filed by attorneys for plaintiffs in nine of 10 federal cases that arose from a May “hazardous materials emergency” involving methyl methacrylate (MMA) at a Garden Grove, Calif., aerospace manufacturing facility, appointing 10 firms to interim leadership positions in growing consolidated litigation comprising more than 20 putative class actions filed by residents, businesses and other property owners.
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August 27, 2026
OXFORD, Miss. — Three complaints accusing companies associated with a facility in Water Valley, Miss., of “poisoning the people, environment, and the community” with trichloroethylene (TCE) vapors are the most recent to be removed to a federal court in Mississippi by defendants who allege diversity jurisdiction.
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August 26, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — The California Supreme Court denied review of an appellate ruling that reinstated a wrongful death lawsuit alleging that a Monsanto pesticide caused a woman’s breast cancer, letting stand a decision that the trial court erred in dismissing the lawsuit for delay in prosecution after the plaintiffs made a minimal showing that the delay was excusable.
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August 26, 2026
NEW ORLEANS — A divided Louisiana appellate panel reversed a trial court’s judgment awarding $407,000 to 12 former city employees who alleged that they were sickened by a 1999 leak of toxic acid fumes from drums in the basement of a property that formerly belonged to Pan-American Life Insurance Co. and said the trial court erred by denying its motion for summary judgment on prior owner liability, while two judges dissented.
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August 25, 2026
NEW ORLEANS — A federal judge in Louisiana dismissed a lawsuit by a seaman who alleged that he suffered from pulmonological and neurological injuries after being exposed to toxic fumes aboard a vessel after the parties stated that they reached a confidential settlement.
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August 24, 2026
LOS ANGELES — A California jury returned a $7.1 million verdict for the family of a man who died at age 46 from silicosis after being exposed to silica through his work as a countertop fabricator, although the jury allocated only 3% of the fault to the defendants that remained at trial.
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August 24, 2026
BATON ROUGE, La. — A Louisiana appeals court panel vacated judgment in a groundwater contamination lawsuit filed by a group of individuals and businesses that own property near the former Dresser Industrial Valve Operations Facility in Rapides Parish, La., that required the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) to direct responsible parties to submit a plan addressing the alleged pollution, holding that the plaintiffs improperly sought declaratory relief through a summary proceeding and that the trial court imposed an unrequested mandatory injunction without an evidentiary hearing.
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August 21, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPMDL) agreed to centralize in a Minnesota federal court cases alleging that specialized personal protective equipment used by firefighters contains per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) that are alleged to be toxic and harmful to both firefighters and the environment, rejecting calls from certain plaintiffs and defendants to add their cases to an MDL involving claims related to the firefighting agent aqueous film forming foam (AFFF).
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August 21, 2026
NEW YORK — Two New York mothers who allege in a putative class action that they unknowingly purchased infant formula that contained heavy metals can pursue fraud and state consumer protection claims against Mead Johnson & Company LLC after showing that the company “sought to capitalize on the mistaken beliefs of reasonable consumers about the health and quality” of the formula, a federal judge in New York said, but the judge ruled that their unjust enrichment claim should be dismissed as duplicative of their other claims.
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August 20, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Ruling that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency “adequately considered and reasonably explained” a decision to uphold a final rule adding two widely used per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) to the list of hazardous substances covered by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, a District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel denied five consolidated petitions filed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and six trade associations seeking to overturn the designation due to various alleged errors.
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August 20, 2026
ATLANTA — After considering two questions certified from a federal court in Georgia, the Georgia Supreme Court determined that exposure to a toxic substance without a present physical injury does not foreclose equitable relief, which instead turns on whether the plaintiff suffered any “legally cognizable injury” and the absence of an adequate remedy at law; however, the state high court did not rule on how this principle applied to the underlying conflict involving a toxic plume released from a chemical plant.
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August 19, 2026
NEWARK, N.J. — A New Jersey federal magistrate judge on Aug. 18 stayed and bifurcated a bad faith claim from a breach of contract claim for the purposes of discovery and trial in a coverage dispute over environmental contamination cleanup costs after determining that adjudication of the two claims will require different witnesses and different documentary proof.
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August 19, 2026
WORCESTER, Mass. — Nearly two years after granting a consumer healthcare products manufacturer’s motion to dismiss Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and state statutory and tort law claims brought by a group of residents over contaminated groundwater, a Massachusetts federal judge issued a memorandum and order explaining the decision on the RCRA claims, with reference to a case decided during the delay, while modifying the decision on the state law claims to dismiss them without prejudice.