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 […]

Source: http://www.canadianunderwriter.ca, December 23, 2014 A case before the Supreme Court of Canada, involving a US$9.5 billion judgment in a pollution lawsuit outside of Canada, has been “closely watched” because of a “large potential liability” faced by petroleum firm Chevron over alleged environmental damage in Ecuador and potential “significant impacts” on Canadian firms with affiliates […]

Source: http://www.bizjournals.com, December 23, 2014 By: Duane Shimogawa The Salvation Army is suing several Hawaii firms, including Honolulu’s Hawaiian Dredging Construction Co. Inc. and Group 70 International Inc., for failing to do an adequate job on the design and construction of its Kroc Center in Kapolei in West Oahu. Major John Chamness, Divisional Commander for […]

Source: http://www.justice.gov, December 22, 2014 The Department of Justice and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced today that XTO Energy Inc. (XTO), a subsidiary of ExxonMobil and the nation’s largest holder of natural gas reserves, will spend an estimated $3 million to restore eight sites damaged by unauthorized discharges of fill material into streams and […]

Source: http://www.grahamco.com, October 20, 2014 By: James P. Marquet One of the biggest challenges that many building construction projects face is liability arising out of mold caused by water intrusion. This is especially true of elder care facilities where the occupants are more susceptible to mold exposure. As a result, lawsuits over mold are becoming […]

Source: Alaska Dispatch News, December 17, 2014 Posted on: http://envfpn.advisen.com Drilling mud, brine and diesel fuel spilled Monday onto a gravel pad and into a pit no longer used at the Kuparuk oil field operated by ConocoPhillips on Alaska’s North Slope, according to the Department of Environmental Conservation. The spill happened when a gasket on […]

Source: http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com, December 16, 2014 By: Eric Dietrich Homeowners adjacent to Bozeman’s Story Mill Landfill have filed suit against the city, seeking unspecified damages for what they argue is the city’s negligence in allowing “a cocktail of toxic chemicals” to migrate onto their properties from an unlined dump site that accepted municipal waste between 1969 […]

Source: Yakima Herald-Republic (WA), December 11, 2014 Posted on: http://envfpn.advisen.com The Yakama Nation is suing a federal agency to recover money it says it spent helping oversee the cleanup of a contaminated Columbia River island. The case against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers focuses on the cleanup of a landfill on Bradford Island, a […]