Source: Los Angeles Times, December 17, 2013 Posted on: http://fpn.advisen.com A Northern California judge Monday found three paint companies liable for exposing children to a known poison and ordered them to pay $1.1 billion into a fund to remove lead from inside California homes. Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge James P. Kleinberg ruled that […]

Read here about a Kentucky company being sued by neighbors of a power plant who complain of breathing problems and pollution.  

Source: The New York Times, December 15, 2013 Posted on: http://envfpn.advisen.com The newest environmental threat to the Great Lakes is very, very small. Tiny plastic beads used in hundreds of toiletries like facial scrubs and toothpastes are slipping through water treatment plants and turning up by the tens of millions in the Great Lakes. There, […]

Source: http://envfpn.advisen.com, December 15, 2013 Posted on: http://envfpn.advisen.com The Environmental Protection Agency will spend the next two months collecting air samples from homes in the Avondale community to determine how serious vapor intrusion is for those Riverside citizens. But in the meantime, residents are worried about their health and property values. The area of concern […]

Source: http://news.yahoo.com, December 13, 2013 By: Nick Brown Anadarko Petroleum Corp and its Kerr-McGee unit acted with “intent to hinder” when they spun off Tronox, the paint materials company that later went bankrupt, and should pay billions of dollars in environmental cleanup costs, a judge ruled on Thursday. The decision, which parties had been awaiting […]

Source: http://www.lexology.com, December 6, 2013 By: Cade J. Laverty and C. Michael Shull III, Frost Brown Todd LLC It is sometimes difficult to tell whose insurer will be liable for certain occurrences on a construction project. The whole purpose of contracting is to allocate risk—hopefully to the party that is better situated to deal with […]

Source: http://www.lexology.com, December 12, 2013 By: Brian Margolies, Traub Lieberman Straus & Shrewsberry LLP In its recent decision in Stoddard Equipment Co., Inc. v. American Safety Indemnity Co., 2013 U.S. Dist. LEIS 170701 (W.D. Mo. Dec. 4, 2013), the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri had occasion to consider whether property […]

Source: http://host.madison.com, December 13, 2-13 By: Charlie Talbert An editorial in the Wisconsin State Journal recently asserted that there would be public outcry if a factory farm had been responsible for the 300,000 gallons of phosphorus-laden manure spilled on Nov. 24 into Six Mile Creek, a tributary to Madison’s lakes. But in fact, factory farms […]

Source: http://ifawebnews.com, December 13, 2013 U.S. construction firms on average paid more for their insurance in the first half of 2013 as underwriters continue to seek price increases across the breadth of their contractor portfolios, according to a report published by Marsh. Pricing for contractors general liability, project-specific general liability, umbrella and excess liability, workers’ […]

Source: http://www.lexology.com, December 5, 2013 By: Carl A. Salisbury, Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP The most striking development in coverage law in 2013 was the willingness of state high courts to correct prior mistaken precedent on their way to finding that faulty workmanship can be a covered “occurrence” under a construction contractor’s commercial general liability […]

Source: http://www.news-journal.com, December 8, 2013 By: Peggy Jones Federal oversight of the old Longview Refinery property on Premier Road entered a new phase this past week when environmental experts from across Texas met there to inspect existing groundwater monitoring wells and pick locations for new soil and groundwater testing that will begin early next year. […]

Source: http://www.thesundaily.my, December 12, 2013 The Peruvian capital awoke Wednesday under an extensive toxic cloud of black smoke billowing out of a burning warehouse full of tires and fuel, raising fears for public health. Huge fuel explosions ignited by the blaze injured five firefighters and authorities said dozens of people have been treated for respiratory […]