-
November 25, 2025
WHEELING, W.Va. — A federal judge in West Virginia on Nov. 24 sanctioned attorneys $10,000 for contempt for their conduct in a class action over alleged illegal phone calls that solicited clients for mass tort cases relating to toxic waterexposure at Camp Lejeune. The judge ruled that the attorneys in question provided an “insufficient” explanation for their conduct once they were ordered to show why they should not be held in contempt for their failure to comply with the court’s order approving the class notice plan.
-
November 25, 2025
SAN DIEGO — An appeals panel in California on Nov. 24 affirmed a $28 million combined verdict against Monsanto for a man who developed cancer from exposure to glyphosate, the active ingredient in the herbicide Roundup, ruling that the plaintiff’s claims were not preempted by the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) and that the punitive damages award did not violate Monsanto’s due process rights.
-
November 24, 2025
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — Norfolk Southern Corp. on Nov. 21 filed multiple reply briefs in Ohio federal court, seeking to exclude seven expert witnesses for the plaintiffs in the ongoing lawsuit over toxic contamination from the 2023 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. Norfolk Southern argues that, pursuant to Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharms., Inc., all of the experts, in one way or another, lack reliability.
-
November 24, 2025
CHICAGO — The Illinois Supreme Court heard oral arguments on a certified question from the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals regarding what effect, if any, a permit or regulation that authorizes emissions has in determining whether a pollution exclusion should be applied as a bar to coverage for bodily injury claims related to chemical discharges from the insured facility.
-
November 20, 2025
BOSTON — A panel of the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Nov. 19 reversed and remanded to Maine federal court the state’s lawsuit against the 3M Co. Inc. alleging injury from water contamination caused by the firefighting agent aqueous film forming foam (AFFF), ruling that 3M is entitled to federal jurisdiction because it has a “colorable” federal contractor defense.
-
November 20, 2025
TRENTON, N.J. — A New Jersey township wants to intervene in litigation brought by the state in federal court against 3M Co., EIDP Inc., formerly E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., and its affiliates related to contamination from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) stemming from activity at DuPont’s Chambers Works plant so it can challenge a proposed settlement that it claims is “arbitrary, capricious, unreasonable, and unlawful unless modified.”
-
November 19, 2025
NEW ORLEANS — A divided Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel reversed and remanded a lower court’s ruling and held that residents who sued Jackson, Miss., for allegedly contaminating the local drinking water supply with lead have valid due process claims against the city.
-
November 18, 2025
ALBANY, N.Y. — A federal judge in New York has granted preliminary approval to a $27 million class action settlement to resolve a long-running dispute over the per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) contamination of drinking water in Hoosick Falls, N.Y., finding that the settlement satisfies the requirements of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(a)(1)-(4).
-
November 18, 2025
ALEXANDRIA, La. — The defendants in a groundwater contamination lawsuit pending in Louisiana federal court have filed a reply brief arguing that the case should be dismissed pursuant to a Lone Pine order because the plaintiffs cannot produce prima facie evidence of an injury, and contending that the plaintiffs have failed to comply with the district court’s directives.
-
November 18, 2025
SAN FRANCISCO — A consumer, Costco Wholesale Corp. and a baby wipe manufacturer on Nov. 17 filed a joint stipulation of dismissal of the consumer’s putative class action alleging that Costco’s Kirkland Signature Baby Wipes contain unsafe levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS); the court in July denied Costco’s motion to reconsider a prior order refusing to dismiss the suit.
-
November 17, 2025
SANTA FE, N.M. — The New Mexico Supreme Court granted a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by several environmental groups and people surrounded by fracking sites and other oil and gas infrastructure in the state’s San Juan and Permian Basins challenging a state appellate court’s dismissal of claims that the state failed to regulate production activities that reportedly led to the harmful release of toxic chemicals and the exacerbation of climate change effects in violation of the New Mexico Constitution.
-
November 17, 2025
PHILADELPHIA — The Pennsylvania Superior Court granted a joint application to discontinue cross-appeals filed by Monsanto Co. and a glyphosate cancer plaintiff who won $404,308,904.11 against the company in trial court, according to a note on the docket.
-
November 13, 2025
RICHMOND, Va. — The Chemours Co. FC LLC on Nov. 12 filed a reply brief in the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals arguing that an environmental advocacy group “contravenes controlling case law” in its brief responding to Chemours’ appeal of a trial court decision in a per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) contamination case. Chemours says that the group seeks “to turn every exceedance of any environmental permit, no matter how minor, into a basis for an injunction, substituting judicial relief for regulatory solutions.”
-
November 13, 2025
WILMINGTON, Del. — Monsanto Co. has filed a reply brief in Delaware state court arguing that the plaintiffs’ opposition to the proposed exclusion of their expert in their glyphosate cancer lawsuit “fails to rectify the fundamental issues” with the expert’s “unreliable opinions and fails to adequately rebut” the arguments Monsanto made in its motion to exclude the expert’s testimony.
-
November 13, 2025
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has released a prepublication version of a proposed rule that would amend Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) regulations related to reporting on products that contain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). The changes would exclude reporting on PFAS in pesticides, food and cosmetics, among other products.
-
November 12, 2025
NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York has granted a motion by gasoline companies to apply a prior summary judgment ruling to Pennsylvania’s claim for failure to warn in a long-running water contamination lawsuit related to methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), holding that the failure-to-warn claim cannot proceed because the state offered no evidence that a failure to warn was a substantial cause of the contamination at issue.
-
November 12, 2025
WHEELING, W.Va. — A defendant in a lawsuit seeking to recover the costs associated with removing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) that have tainted local sources of drinking water under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act has filed a motion in West Virginia federal court arguing that the case should be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction because the plaintiff fails to allege that the defendant has sufficient contact with West Virginia.
-
November 12, 2025
HONOLULU — Seven of the bellwether plaintiffs in a lawsuit over groundwater contamination from a jet fuel spill at the Pearl Harbor Naval Base have filed a notice in Hawaii federal indicating that they are appealing a $598,633.15 damages judgment won by all 17 bellwether plaintiffs to the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. The appellants, all minors, did not articulate the specifics of their appeal.
-
November 11, 2025
RALEIGH, N.C. — The Plaintiffs’ Leadership Group (PLG) in the Camp Lejeune water crisis multidistrict litigation in North Carolina federal court on Nov. 10 filed a brief arguing that the U.S. government’s motion seeking summary judgment dismissal on all claims alleging that dichloroethylene (DCE) caused any of the Track 1 diseases is “improper.” The PLG argues that the government’s motion is “scientifically untenable” because “it is a scientific fact that DCE was present in the Camp Lejeune water that Plaintiffs drank.”
-
November 11, 2025
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Recklessness by United Parcel Service Inc., General Electric Co. and Boeing Co. caused the Nov. 4 crash of a UPS MD-11 cargo aircraft as it attempted to depart a Louisville airport for Hawaii, airport neighbors allege in a putative class complaint filed in a federal court in Kentucky.
-
November 11, 2025
RALEIGH, N.C. — The Plaintiffs’ Leadership Group (PLG) in the Camp Lejeune water crisis multidistrict litigation filed a brief in North Carolina federal court on Nov. 11 arguing that it should deny the U.S. government’s partial motion to dismiss a woman’s loss of consortium claim related to her husband’s claim for Parkinson’s disease related to exposure to the contaminated water at the military base. The PLG says “any other outcome would be a miscarriage of justice.”
-
November 11, 2025
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The West Virginia high court has affirmed two lower courts and held that a group of coal miners who sued the makers of respiratory devices failed to file their lung injury lawsuits before the statute of limitations expired.
-
November 10, 2025
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Maryland and South Carolina have filed a joint petition for certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court asking it to review a Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that denied them remand of their respective injury lawsuits against the 3M Co. related to exposure to the firefighting agent aqueous film forming foam (AFFF), arguing that the circuit court’s decision “far exceeds” the intended scope of the federal removal statute, expands federal jurisdiction at the expense of state sovereignty and “contravenes 200 years of this Court’s precedent” interpreting the statute.
-
November 06, 2025
CINCINNATI — A Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Nov. 5 dismissed the appeal of a group of individuals who objected to the $600 million class action settlement in the Ohio train derailment lawsuit, ruling that the objectors failed to pay the $850,000 appeal bond in a timely manner and holding that they offered no valid justification for failing to pay the appeal bond.
-
November 05, 2025
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Nov. 4 in a dispute between a baby food manufacturer and parents who contend that the company’s product contains heavy metals, with the attorneys debating issues of jurisdiction, diversity of parties and prejudice.