Most of the work of the Environmental Torts (ET) Section
arises from government contractor or military activities, and from environmental
regulatory activity. The cases often involve hundreds of plaintiffs alleging
injuries caused by air, surface water, or groundwater contamination, or by direct
contact with hazardous substances. The contaminants at issue include chemicals,
as well as fuels, carbon monoxide, and bacteria. These actions usually are
brought under the FTCA, but are also premised upon admiralty and contract law,
or various environmental statutes. Due to the complexity of such tort matters,
ET typically handles these issues, rather than delegating them to the United
States Attorneys Offices.
Examples
of our practice
Recent cases involved allegations of environmental contamination
from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California; the Army's
World War I testing of chemical weapons in what is now the Spring Valley neighborhood
of Washington, DC; the Department of Interior's application of herbicide over
a large portion of Idaho; the Department of Agriculture's use of pesticides
in Nebraska, Texas, and Florida; lead in a house sold by HUD in Rhode Island;
and exposure to lead in wastes from mining activities on Native American property
in Oklahoma; as well as allegations of injuries from groundwater contamination
or toxic air exposures at present and former military facilities in more than
a dozen states. In Vallier (the $800 million groundwater contamination
case arising out of the JPL), the ET trial team developed facts dating back
to before World War II establishing that the government had properly exercised
its discretion in leaving environmental compliance to its contractor, co-defendant
and third-party-plaintiff Caltech.
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