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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 — 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.
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September 10, 2026
HONOLULU — A federal judge in Hawaii granted approval of three more settlements between the U.S. government and plaintiffs, including minors, in two consolidated lawsuits related to groundwater contamination from a jet fuel spill at the Pearl Harbor Naval Base.
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September 10, 2026
ATLANTA — An 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel denied as moot a petition for rehearing and rehearing en banc filed by an Alabama town in a lawsuit over per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) contamination of the Alabama River after issuing a substituted opinion, finding for the second time that the trial court erred when it ruled that defendant 3M Co.’s removal of the case to federal court under the federal officer removal statute was improper but revising its analysis of the statute’s “acting under” requirement.
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September 09, 2026
DENVER — The 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied a petition by two individuals who accuse the alleged owners and operators of a Kansas facility of exposing them and others to carcinogens, seeking interlocutory review of the question whether the latent disease exception to the Kansas Product Liability Act’s (KPLA) statute of repose applies to toxic tort claims arising from air emissions.
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September 09, 2026
DENVER — A divided Colorado Supreme Court denied a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by three individuals whose attempt to amend a putative class complaint over ethylene oxide (EtO) emissions from sterilization facilities was denied after an appellate panel ruled that standing to sue under Colorado law couldn’t be established based on an alleged increased risk of future illness or disease.
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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.