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September 30, 2026
ATLANTA — A Georgia federal judge denied a spray foam manufacturer’s motion for attorney fees from a homeowner who filed suit after falling ill from the effects of allegedly toxic foam used to insulate her home, ruling that even though the plaintiff’s claims against the manufacturer were dismissed on summary judgment, they were “not so substantially groundless as to warrant a fee award.”
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September 30, 2026
SAN DIEGO — A California federal judge on Sept. 29 granted a woman’s motion to certify a statewide class bringing claims against a tampon manufacturer for violating California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and other laws by allegedly misrepresenting its tampons as safe when they in fact contained lead in its tampons and granted in part and denied in part a defense motion to exclude the plaintiff’s expert witness.
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September 29, 2026
LOS ANGELES — An insurer filed a notice of appeal on Sept. 28 to the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals following a California federal judge’s ruling that a pollution exclusion does not relieve the insurer of its duty to defend its insured against an underlying personal injury suit stemming from a claimant’s exposure to hydrogen sulfide gas.
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September 29, 2026
LANSING, Mich. — Underlying plaintiffs who filed two class action lawsuits seeking damages caused by lead-contaminated water supplied by a city argue that the city’s insurers have a duty to defend and indemnify the city for a $25 million consent settlement reached in the underlying class action suits because the insurers cannot dispute that the settlement between the city and the underlying plaintiffs was “reasonable and in good faith,” the underlying plaintiffs say in support of a motion for summary judgment filed in Michigan federal court.
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September 28, 2026
DENVER — A federal judge in Colorado dismissed with prejudice fraud and misrepresentation, breach of warranty and negligent infliction of emotional distress claims against the manufacturers of a plane and one of its components brought by flight attendants who say they incurred injuries from a “fume event” during a flight, finding that the flight attendants’ allegations were conclusory.
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September 25, 2026
ST. LOUIS — A Missouri federal judge granted a joint motion by several manufacturers to dismiss Monsanto Co.’s claims against them seeking indemnification for litigation it faces related to alleged injuries from exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), finding that Monsanto failed to link the litigation against it to the specific chemicals it sold to the defendants under contracts allegedly providing for indemnification by the purchasers, but granting it leave to amend.
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September 25, 2026
CLEVELAND — Following an Ohio federal judge’s finding that an occupational disease exclusion relieves a primary insurer of its duty to defend or indemnify its insured in underlying lawsuits stemming from exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), the insured filed a notice of appeal to the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
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September 25, 2026
HAMMOND, Ind. — An Indiana federal judge adopted the result of a magistrate judge’s report and recommendation and denied two motions for partial judgment on the pleadings filed by manufacturing companies accused of exposing to lead 11 minors who lived in homes and attended elementary school in an area later discovered to be contaminated, writing that “throwaway lines in a brief” regarding four plaintiffs not having injuries do not constitute “judicial admissions” that would warrant dismissal of their claims.
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September 25, 2026
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A New Mexico federal judge granted a group of industrial associations’ motion for a preliminary injunction and enjoined the state of New Mexico from requiring manufacturers of products that contain intentionally added per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) to add a new, state-specific PFAS graphic warning, finding that the regulation is not a “reasonable fit” for the state goal of protecting public health.
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September 25, 2026
LOS ANGELES — A family filed a lawsuit in a California court alleging claims for wrongful death, negligence and personal injury against multiple refinery facilities and their historical owners or operators, alleging that their father’s death and their diseases were caused by chronic residential exposure to hazardous air pollutants and refinery byproducts, including benzene, particulate matter, soot and ash, in Los Angeles County area refinery facilities in Carson and Wilmington from approximately 1975 through 1989.
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September 25, 2026
CHARLESTON, S.C. — A federal judge in South Carolina denied a motion to reconsider his May partial denial of a joint motion to remand nine cases in an aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) multidistrict litigation that were brought by water utilities accusing DuPont de Nemours Inc., EIDP Inc., The Chemours Co. and Corteva Inc. (together, DuPont) of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) contamination due to local industries’ use of “non-AFFF products.”
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September 23, 2026
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A federal judge in Michigan on Sept. 22 issued a final order closing a False Claims Act lawsuit alleging that Abbott Laboratories “made and sold substandard, adulterated, and non-compliant infant formula and nutritional therapy products for distribution to Federal Payer Programs and Private Payers, and submitted false claims for payment to the federal government” after the parties filed a joint stipulation of dismissal indicating that Abbott has agreed to pay $384,999,040.12 to resolve the qui tam lawsuit, as well as intervenor complaints filed by the United States and various states.
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September 22, 2026
LOS ANGELES — An insurer filed a motion for reconsideration in California federal court, arguing that reconsideration of the denial of the insurer’s motion for certification of interlocutory appeal is warranted based on another California federal judge’s recent decisions certifying interlocutory appeals in similar silica exposure coverage suits.
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September 18, 2026
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — A federal judge in Connecticut partially dismissed putative class claims brought by firefighters, unions and the Uniformed Professional Fire Fighters Association of Connecticut (UPFFA), alleging harm from certain personal protective equipment containing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS); the judge found that the unions lacked associational standing to bring medical monitoring and damages claims on behalf of their members, that defendant 3M Co. can’t be liable for manufacturing PFAS when the alleged defects of PFAS “are characteristic of PFAS itself” but may still be liable for making PFAS-containing products and that standalone claims for medical monitoring and statutory punitive damages can’t proceed.
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September 18, 2026
NEW ORLEANS — A Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel vacated the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s rule and its risk determination regarding the use of methylene chloride (MC), writing that “errors of law occurred and substantial evidence did not support EPA’s decision,” denied an environmental group’s petition for review and remanded the matter to the EPA for further proceedings.
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September 16, 2026
NEW YORK — A New York federal judge denied an omnibus motion by several plastics manufacturers to dismiss a lawsuit brought against them by a New York village alleging Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) liability from releases or threatened releases of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) into the village’s drinking water.
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September 16, 2026
CLEVELAND — An insurer seeking to avoid reimbursing a reinsurer’s $31 million environmental settlement told an Ohio federal court that the reinsurer’s counterclaims for breach of contract, equitable subrogation and unjust enrichment fail because the payment arose from the reinsurer’s separate guaranty obligations rather than liabilities under the reinsured policy and because the reinsurer lacks contractual rights to enforce the facultative reinsurance certificates.
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September 15, 2026
OXFORD, Miss. — No coverage is owed to an insured for underlying wrongful death and negligence claims stemming from exposure to contaminated soil and groundwater that allegedly was not properly remediated because coverage is barred by the applicable policy’s total pollution exclusion, the insurer says in its reply in support of summary judgment.
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September 14, 2026
TRENTON, N.J. — Gasoline supplier Hess Corp. filed a complaint in New Jersey federal court, claiming it is entitled as an additional insured to coverage for two underlying bodily injury lawsuits seeking damages as a result of exposure to benzene in gasoline supplied by Hess.
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September 14, 2026
KINGS HILL, St. Croix, Virgin Islands — A Virgin Islands judge denied summary judgment but granted a bifurcated trial, finding that an indirect owner of an aluminum company could be liable to that company’s former employees for negligence and failure to warn about the dangers of the bauxite it supplied for use at the facility and that evidence of the supplier’s net worth will appear in phase 2 only if necessary to avoid introducing prejudice against the company in the first phase of the trial.
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September 14, 2026
RALEIGH, N.C. — The Chemours Co. and several affiliates agreed to pay $590 million, with $455 million in direct payments, to settle long-running litigation brought by North Carolina, several counties and local governments and a water and sewer authority over alleged contamination from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) at the Fayetteville Works manufacturing facility in Bladen County.
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September 14, 2026
CHICAGO — An Illinois federal judge allowed negligence, gross negligence and battery claims to proceed in a lawsuit brought by a former laboratory technician who alleges that occupational exposure to benzene-containing solvents caused his cancer but dismissed strict liability and fraud claims against three chemical companies; the judge also refused to order that the plaintiff provide a more definite statement under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(e).
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September 14, 2026
WILMINGTON, Del. — A Delaware judge declined to dismiss 227 mercury exposure suits from former employees who worked at a Delaware chemical plant or their relatives as untimely because determining when the plaintiffs should have connected their injuries to exposure requires discovery but dismissed several claims and defendants for pleading deficiencies, allowing amendments.
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September 14, 2026
NEW ORLEANS — Residents of Jackson, Miss., who allege injury due to water contaminated by lead cannot seek redress under the U.S. Constitution’s due process clause, a divided en banc Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled, affirming a ruling by a federal court in Mississippi and declining to “expand the Fourteenth Amendment to create novel theories of constitutional liability.”
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September 11, 2026
OMAHA, Neb. — A railroad worker was exposed to benzene, silica and asbestos dust and fibers during his 41-year employment with BNSF Railway Co., which had knowledge of the exposure and associated risks and that exposure “caused or contributed to” the worker’s esophageal cancer, his daughter alleges in a complaint filed in a federal court in Nebraska seeking more than $150,000.