Source: http://www.lexology.com, December 22, 2014 By: John C. Pitblado, Carlton Fields Jorden Burt A New York statute provides that liability insurers may not deny claims on grounds of late notice, unless they can show they were prejudiced by the delay. The statute applies to policies “issued or delivered” in New York. In October 2014, in Indian Harbor Ins. […]

Source: http://www.insurancejournal.com, January 5, 2015 The current estimate of net asbestos losses for the U.S. property/casualty industry remains at $85 billion, with net environmental losses estimated at $42 billion, according to a new Best’s Special Report. According to the Best’s report titled “U.S. Insurers Continue Funding of Asbestos & Environmental Liabilities, Despite Elusive End Game,” […]

Source: http://www.riverheadlocal.com, January 5, 2015 By: Civiletti One of Riverhead Water District’s newest wells is producing water contaminated with perchlorate, a chemical known to affect the human endocrine system and considered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency a “likely human carcinogen.” Well 16, located off Edwards Avenue north of Route 25 in Calverton, completed in […]

Source: http://www.philly.com, January 5, 2015 By: Angelo Fichera When Paulsboro reached a settlement in December with the plastics company it had sued nearly a year before over a contaminated water well, it marked a win for a scrappy industrial town familiar with environmental woes. The agreement, valued at more than $2 million, stipulates that Solvay […]

Source: http://www.wisconsinagconnection.com, January 5, 2015 The Wisconsin Supreme Court has reversed an appeals court ruling that earlier determined that a Washington County farm couple was not responsible for compensating their neighbors out of pocket for well contamination expenses caused by manure run-off. According to court records, the Department of Natural Resources notified Robert and Jane […]

Source: http://www.triplepundit.com, January 1, 2015 By: Tina Casey If you heard that loud sighing sound coming from New York state earlier this month, that was probably a sigh of relief as Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo finally agreed to a statewide ban on fracking. The ban followed the release of the state’s Department of Health study, […]

Source: http://www.stltoday.com, January 3, 2015 By: Jacob Barker Except for an underground fire in an adjacent landfill, little has changed in the four decades since regulators realized radioactive waste was buried in a north St. Louis County dump. For more than 20 years, it’s been up to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to figure out […]

Source: http://www.lakewyliepilot.com, January 1, 2015 By: Bruce Henderson Two dozen lawsuits now before a federal court challenge the personal cost of North Carolina’s $2.5 billion hog industry: living with its stink. More than 500 plaintiffs from hog country, centered southeast of Raleigh, say the sickening stench regularly forces them indoors. Mists of wastewater sprayed on […]

Source: http://www.mondaq.com, December 30, 2014 By: Troutman Sanders St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co. v. Vadnais Corp.,2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 13084 (9th Cir. July 10, 2014) In St. Paul, the Ninth Circuit reversed the ruling by the Eastern District of California that an exclusion for work performed by the insured applied to all “property […]

Source: http://www.lexology.com, December 24, 2014 By: Steven M. Siros, Jenner & Block In one of his last acts on the way out of office, Governor Quinn gave what some describe as a “big Christmas gift for the plaintiffs’ bar” when he signed into law a bill that exempts construction-related asbestos personal injury claims from Illinois’ […]

Source: http://www.timesledger.com, December 28, 2014 By: Madina Toure The site of a former dry cleaners’ service, which is part of a shopping center in Whitestone, is now being considered for the state Brownfield Cleanup Program. On July 14, the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, a supermarket chain based in Montvale, N.J., submitted an application […]

Source: http://www.kake.com, December 29, 2014 Nearly 200 Wichita homes affected by groundwater contamination have been connected to city water. KAKE News first alerted residents about the issue in April when the Kansas Department of Health and Environment began investigating groundwater contaminated with tetrachloroethylene (PCE), a volatile organic chemical commonly used in dry cleaning. The KDHE […]