Groundwater Contamination Litigation: Proving and Defending Against Liability
Course Details
- smart_display Format
On-Demand
- signal_cellular_alt Difficulty Level
- work Practice Area
Environmental
- event Date
Tuesday, May 24, 2022
- schedule Time
1:00 p.m. ET./10:00 a.m. PT
- timer Program Length
90 minutes
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This 90-minute webinar is eligible in most states for 1.5 CLE credits.
This CLE course will provide environmental counsel with a review of the regulatory structures for groundwater contamination, analyze lessons from recent significant cases, discuss trends related to damage recovery, and outline best practices for proving and defending against liability.
Mr. Thompson’s practice includes environmental, commercial and insurance-related litigation in state and federal court, as well as in state administrative court. He has represented and advised clients in connection with a range of environmental and commercial issues, including defending enforcement actions by the EPA and state environmental agencies, toxic tort litigation, CWA permitting and compliance, hazardous waste, groundwater contamination, environmental cleanup and emergency response and other environmental matters. Mr. Thompson serves as an adjunct professor at Emory University School of Law teaching a course in water law and environmental litigation.
Mr. Taylor defends complex toxic tort and products liability cases with an emphasis on public and private nuisance litigation, environmental contamination suits, and food safety issues. His experience includes defending clients in class actions, MDL coordinated proceedings, nationwide mass tort litigation, and appellate cases involving complex scientific and medical issues.
Mr. Croner is a partner at Napoli Shkolnik PLLC and heads the firm’s Environmental department. His practice focuses on representing clients who have been harmed by environmental contaminants, including public and private water suppliers that have been forced to incur remediation and treatment costs due to the presence of such contaminants in their water systems.
Groundwater contamination litigation is on the rise. There has been a string of recent cases, and courts have ordered defendants to pay millions of dollars in damages due to groundwater contamination claims. For example, one company agreed to pay $204 million to settle a suit over decades-long groundwater contamination in Delaware in April 2021. In October 2021, two other companies settled a 30-year-old claim in California for $77.6 million in a lawsuit for groundwater contamination related to pesticides released into the water.
Litigation of such claims is quite arduous. Proving or defending against groundwater contamination liability involves significant documentation, scientific reports, and expert testimony. With increasing regulatory and litigation activity related to groundwater pollution, counsel must have the tools necessary to strategize in proving or defending against liability.
Listen as our panel of experts examines the regulatory structures for groundwater contamination, discusses lessons learned from recent cases of significance and the trends for damage recovery, and offers best practices for identifying the sources and proving liability, as well as defending against such claims.
- Federal and state regulatory structures
- Recent litigation
- Lessons learned from recent cases
- Trends in damages recovery
- Strategies for proving liability
- Identifying source
- Nexus
- Documentation
- Science
- Experts
The panel will review these and other high priority issues:
- What are the lessons from recent groundwater contamination litigation?
- How are courts reacting to groundwater contamination cases?
- What strategies can counsel employ to prove liability for groundwater contamination? Conversely, what strategies can defense counsel use to defend against such claims?
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