Source: http://www.latimes.com, December 22, 2014 By: Kim Christensen and Tony Barboza Exide Technologies officials willfully endangered the health of more than 60 children living near the company’s troubled lead recycling plant in Vernon, according to a lawsuit filed Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court. The complaint alleges that Exide officers, directors and managers intentionally […]

Source: http://www.mondaq.com, January 2, 2015 In early November, a jury found in favor of the policyholder in KeySpan Gas East Corp. v. Munich Reinsurance America Inc. et al., resolving a 17-year-old coverage dispute over pollution cleanup costs for historic manufactured gas plant sites on Long Island. Long Island Lighting Co., which sued the insurers in […]

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.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 […]