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May 18, 2026
KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Despite determining that the plaintiffs’ motion to compel discovery in a toxic chemical exposure case was untimely, a federal magistrate judge in Kansas ruled on the merits of the motion and denied it as “overbroad, unduly burdensome, and not proportional to the needs of the case” because it sought documents spanning a 65-year period. The magistrate judge ruled that discovery was limited to a 10-year period dating from the filing of the complaint in 2015.
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May 18, 2026
CHARLESTON, S.C. — The federal judge in South Carolina overseeing the multidistrict litigation (MDL) for the firefighting agent aqueous film forming foam (AFFF) has remanded to state court three of nine groundwater contamination cases brought by South Carolina water authorities against E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co. and other companies, ruling that DuPont’s government contractor defense does not apply to all of the cases.
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May 18, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — The federal judge in California presiding over the multidistrict litigation related to the herbicide Roundup has denied plaintiffs’ request for an injunction or declaratory relief regarding certain features of a proposed nationwide class action settlement in other Roundup litigation, saying that the settlement, even if it were granted final approval and survived appellate review, “would not prevent this Court from exercising its authority over” the cases in the MDL (In Re: Roundup Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2741, N.D. Calif.).
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May 18, 2026
NEW YORK — A federal judge held, in partially granting and denying a motion to dismiss, that a historic industrial community in New York can proceed with some, but not all, Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act and state law claims against International Business Machines Corp. for allegedly contaminating residential drinking water wells with toxic chemicals for decades, finding that claims associated with at least one of three of the community’s wells are part of a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site covered by federal settlement agreements governing cleanup efforts.
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May 18, 2026
HONOLULU — A federal judge in Hawaii has dismissed and closed one of three consolidated cases stemming from groundwater contamination following a jet fuel spill at the Pearl Harbor Naval Base, ruling that the claims are barred under the Feres doctrine, which holds that the federal government is not liable under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) for injuries to service members “resulting from, or ‘incident to,’ active-duty military service.” The plaintiffs in the case at hand were active-duty service members at the time of the fuel spill in 2021.
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May 15, 2026
BUTTE, Mont. — A federal judge in Montana has denied as moot motions to dismiss filed by 3M Co., DuPont de Nemours Inc. and others in a lawsuit over per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) contamination in what is called “turnout gear” for firefighters, ruling that the plaintiffs’ second amended complaint superseded the earlier complaint targeted by the motions.
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May 15, 2026
WILMINGTON, Del. — A federal judge in Delaware on May 14 denied as moot a motion to dismiss filed by W.L. Gore & Associates Inc. in a lawsuit over the presence of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in its outdoor clothing, ruling that the plaintiffs’ second amended putative class action complaint supersedes the one Gore moved to dismiss.
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May 14, 2026
PHILADELPHIA — The Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on May 13 denied rehearing and rehearing en banc for a man with cancer who asked the court to review a panel ruling that affirmed dismissal of his lawsuit against Monsanto Co. for injuries allegedly caused by exposure to the herbicide Roundup on grounds the claims were barred by the statute of repose in the Indiana Products Liability Act (IPLA).
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May 13, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Plaintiffs who won $549.9 million in punitive damages in a Roundup injury case in Missouri state court have filed a brief in the U.S. Supreme Court opposing Monsanto Co.’s petition for a writ of certiorari, arguing that under Missouri law, strict liability for design defect is a stand-alone claim for which a party can be liable, “irrespective of any warnings given.”
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May 12, 2026
DENVER — A federal judge in Colorado has dismissed Frontier Airlines Inc. from a toxic exposure lawsuit brought by flight attendants who have alleged claims against multiple defendants related to an incident in which they were allegedly exposed to toxic fumes while on the job. The judge ruled that the claims against Frontier were covered by the Colorado Workers' Compensation Act (WCA) and denied the plaintiffs’ motion to remand the case to Colorado state court.
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May 11, 2026
LOS ANGELES — An interlocutory appeal is warranted in a silica exposure coverage suit because a California federal judge’s order denying a motion for judgment on the pleadings filed by the insurers involves questions of law regarding the scope and application of silica exclusions in the insurers’ policies, the insurers say in a motion for certification of interlocutory appeal.
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May 04, 2026
PENDLETON, Ore. — A federal judge in Oregon, in denying a motion to consolidate two similar, pending lawsuits involving the alleged contamination of groundwater in the Lower Umatilla Basin by Amazon Data Services (ADS), the Port of Morrow and several agricultural companies in violation of state law and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), held that “the judicial economy does not require consolidation” of the cases and opined that joining them could prejudice the defendants.
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May 04, 2026
ALBANY, N.Y. — A federal judge in New York has granted final approval to a $27 million class action settlement to resolve a long-running dispute between residents and E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. over the per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) contamination of drinking water in Hoosick Falls, N.Y., finding that the settlement is “fair, adequate, and reasonable” and saying that it drew no objections and no opt-outs.
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May 04, 2026
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — The Alabama Supreme Court has ruled unanimously that a state court acted “in a manner in which it does not properly have jurisdiction” by issuing an order requiring the defendants in a per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) case to resume litigating the lawsuit while the issue of federal removal remains on appeal at the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. The Supreme Court stayed the case and issued a writ of prohibition requiring it to vacate the order in question.
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April 28, 2026
By Tony Cole
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May 01, 2026
SAN JOSE, Calif. — In an unpublished opinion, an appellate court panel in California affirmed a verdict in favor of Monsanto Co. in a lawsuit alleging that exposure to the herbicide Roundup caused a man to develop cancer, ruling that to the extent the trial court did not limit Monsanto’s use of a separate-but-related lawsuit in questioning at trial, the plaintiff forfeited his objection to that line of questioning by not raising that specific issue at trial.
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April 30, 2026
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — A federal magistrate judge in Connecticut has approved a modified protective order outlining broad topics related to the handling of confidential information and the use of generative AI in discovery in an injury lawsuit related to exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances(PFAS) brought by firefighters, firefighter unions and parties that purchased gear for firefighters against the makers of PFAS. Among other things, the order establishes that confidential material that is uploaded into a generative AI tool should not be hosted on public cloud servers or used to train public AI models.
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April 30, 2026
WILMINGTON, N.C. — A federal judge in North Carolina has partially granted and partially denied a motion by E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co. and two affiliates to exclude a plaintiffs’ expert in a consolidated class action alleging injuries from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), finding that she is unqualified to offer some of her opinions but rejecting the defendants’ argument that all of her opinions related to air and water modeling should be excluded.
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April 30, 2026
HONOLULU — A federal judge in Hawaii has adopted a magistrate judge’s report that recommended approving settlements for 119 minor plaintiffs, for a combined gross total of $1,588,000, for injuries to plaintiffs in two of three consolidated cases stemming from groundwater contamination following a jet fuel spill at the Pearl Harbor Naval Base. The actual net settlement amounts for each plaintiff will be reduced by the cost of attorney fees and Hawaii state excise tax.
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April 29, 2026
BALTIMORE — A federal judge in Maryland granted the 3M Co.’s motion to stay the state’s lawsuit for injuries related to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) pending a decision by the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPMDL) on 3M’s motion to transfer the case to the MDL for litigation pertaining to the firefighting agent aqueous film forming foam (AFFF). The judge said 3M would be prejudiced absent a stay because it could face inconsistent rulings on remand issues in the MDL court.
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April 28, 2026
LOS ANGELES — An insurer maintains that reconsideration of a California federal judge’s finding that the insurer has a duty to defend its insured for underlying silica bodily injury suits is necessary because the judge failed to consider the total pollution exclusion in the insurer’s policies under the most recent and applicable California authority.
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April 28, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Attorneys presented oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court on April 27 debating the question of whether the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) preempts label-based state failure-to-warn claims in situations where the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has not required a warning. The question arose in litigation related the herbicide Roundup.
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April 27, 2026
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — A state court judge in Missouri on April 26 issued an order stating that judgments for punitive damages and for damages based on a failure-to-warn claim in consolidated litigation over injuries allegedly caused by exposure to the herbicide Roundup are not yet final, and recovery of the awards is stayed in light of a pending petition in the U.S. Supreme Court that challenges the ruling that led to a combined $549.9 million punitive damages award.
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April 27, 2026
WILMINGTON, Del. — W.L. Gore & Associates Inc. has filed a brief in Delaware federal court arguing that it should dismiss a putative class action alleging “deceptive, misleading, and unfair conduct” related to the presence of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in its outdoor clothing because the plaintiffs do not allege a cognizable injury.
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April 22, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Union Carbide Corp. and an affiliate on April 21 filed a reply brief in support of their petition for certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that it should review a Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals opinion pertaining to the correct legal standard for the admissibility of an expert in an ethylene oxide (EtO) injury case because the appellate court “continues to apply the toothless standard for admitting expert testimony that Federal Rule of Evidence 702 was amended in 2023 to repudiate.”