Environmental & Toxic Tort
Litigation
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Opis praktyki
Business organizations sometimes have past, present, or planned operations that involve emissions to the air, discharges to water, releases on land, potential impacts to wildlife habitats or wetlands, or other effects on the environment. These activities can lead to legal disputes in any number of situations, including when governments take enforcement action, environmental groups oppose permits, or neighbors claim to have been injured or damaged.
Greenberg Traurig’s Environmental & Toxic Tort Litigation Practice offers clients a dedicated, client-oriented legal team experienced in navigating such disputes. Our team, which is deployed across the firm’s international platform, has wide-ranging experience in complex civil and criminal environmental matters, including the following:
- Personal injury, wrongful death, medical monitoring, and property damage claims arising from environmental conditions and exposures
- Regulatory disputes, first-party permit appeals, and third-party permit appeals
- Rule challenges
- Citizen suits
- Administrative and civil enforcement litigation
- Internal investigations
- Criminal enforcement
- CERCLA and RCRA enforcement, cost recovery, and other actions
- Natural resource damages claims
- Private party environmental litigation, including real estate and other business disputes
Our civil litigation practice focuses on representing clients in mass torts, class actions, multi-district litigation, regulatory enforcement, citizen suits, and other complex matters. Greenberg Traurig’s lawyers address the legal challenges facing clients in these evolving areas of the law, including the wide array of novel claims brought by sophisticated plaintiff and government counsel.
Our team has the experience and resources to try high-stakes cases, including those involving alleged soil, water, and air pollution. As part of our strategic approach to cases, we also advise clients on creative defense strategies, including those designed to facilitate early resolutions. We work closely with scientists, physicians, engineers, modelers, appraisers, economists, historians, accountants, and other experts who play an important role in complex environmental and toxic tort litigation. We also have broad appellate capabilities that we utilize to support our litigation and trial strategies, as well as to represent our clients in appeals.
We have a broad spectrum of experience representing chemical, refining, mining, manufacturing, and other industrial and commercial clients regarding releases to air, water, and land; contaminated sites; solid waste management; hazardous substances and wastes; forests, minerals, and other natural resources; and workplace exposures. We have experience with the full range of environmental laws, including the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA or Superfund), the Clean Water Act (CWA), the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA Act), and the Clean Water Act (CWA), as well as with climate change. As necessary, we work closely with our colleagues from other relevant firm practices, including the Real Estate, Land Development, Corporate, Energy & Natural Resources, and Restructuring & Bankruptcy Practices.
We have the ability to respond quickly to motions for temporary restraining orders and other injunctive relief, criminal and administrative search warrants, environmental releases, workplace exposures, and other emergencies. Our lawyers have broad experience with assisting clients with reporting requirements, the selection and management of consultants, corrective measures, crisis management and public relations strategies, electronic and other evidence gathering and preservation, internal audits and investigations, legal exposure analysis, and the development and execution of short-term, intermediate, and long-term defensive strategies.
With respect to government enforcement, we have broad experience representing clients during agency and grand jury investigations, as well as defending organizations and individuals in civil and criminal proceedings arising under federal and state environmental laws. Our lawyers regularly assist clients with assessing difficult situations by conducting internal investigations. Once key factual and legal issues have been identified and analyzed, we endeavor to resolve cases as quickly and cost-effectively as possible by engaging the government early in the process. We have broad experience negotiating non-prosecution, deferred prosecution, and plea agreements as well as administrative and civil consent orders and decrees. Greenberg Traurig’s lawyers have defended enforcement proceedings involving the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Justice, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and Customs and Border Protection, as well as numerous state and local law enforcement and regulatory agencies. Because our team includes former regulators, prosecutors, and other government officials, we have the resources necessary to analyze potential violations, determine an agency’s focus, and guide clients in developing and implementing appropriate responses.
Broad Capabilities and Industry Knowledge
- National team experienced in managing all aspects of environmental and toxic tort litigation, including trials and appeals
- Client orientation with a firm focus on adding value
- Ability to respond quickly to releases, workplace exposures, search warrants, and other emergency situations
- Capability to conduct effective and efficient internal investigations
- Broad experience defending civil and criminal enforcement actions in state and federal courts
- Proficiency with the scientific and medical aspects of environmental cases
- Established network of outside experts to identify and address technical issues
- Focus on ensuring consistent strategy and themes through all stages of litigation
- In-house capability for cost-effective information management
- Effective communication infrastructure, including secure, web-based e-rooms
- Innovative in-house trial technology team
Representative Experience
- Currently representing an international aerospace company in four high-profile mass toxic-tort actions where plaintiffs allege emissions from a manufacturing facility contaminated nearby properties and injured persons near the facility. Plaintiffs seek injunctive relief, medical monitoring, and monetary damages.
- Defended the Orlando Utilities Commission in a $100M putative class action brought by residents alleging that emissions from a power plant contaminated approximately 15,000 properties within an approximate 80-square-mile area and elevated local cancer rates. Defense efforts forced Plaintiffs to substantiate areawide environmental impact through scientific causation, which, importantly, resulted in them voluntarily abandoning class certification. A putative class action that once included more than 30,000 residents has now been dismissed with prejudice—a complete defense victory.
- Representation of a manufacturer in a toxic tort lawsuit brought by 45 plaintiffs in Illinois state court. The plaintiffs had alleged that the company had caused or contributed to soil and groundwater contamination in the town of Wedron. The plaintiffs alleged property damage and personal injuries as a result of being exposed to benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene (BTEX) contamination in both the soil and groundwater. The judge granted GT’s motion to exclude the plaintiff’s key liability expert because his analysis was not based on specific data from the site. Without the benefit of expert testimony to support plaintiffs’ argument that the manufacturer was a cause of the contamination, plaintiffs were unable to sustain their burden of proof as to causation, and the judge granted motion for summary judgment. This victory concludes seven years of litigation, in addition to several years prior to the litigation of cooperating with U.S. EPA and Illinois EPA in investigation and remediation activities. The claims of groundwater contamination generated significant publicity, due in part to the participation of environmental activist Erin Brockovich.
- Williams v. Mosaic Fertilizer, et al. Defended Mosaic in federal court in toxic tort litigation where plaintiff alleged she suffered adverse health effects as a result of airborne exposure to industrial emissions and claimed over $60 million in damages. Prevailed on all claims in trial court on Daubertand summary judgment motions in a 41-page order and a subsequent order excluding evidence of stigma damages. See Rhonda Williams v. Mosaic Fertilizer, LLC, Case No. 8:14-cv-1748, 2016 WL 7175657 (M.D. Fla. June 24, 2016). Plaintiff appealed the trial court’s decision and the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed entry of summary judgment in favor of Mosaic. Williams v. Mosaic Fertilizer, LLC, 889 F.3d 1239 (11th Cir. 2018).
- Curd, et al. Mosaic Fertilizer, LLC. Decertified a large putative class action brought against Mosaic Fertilizer alleging damages resulting from a release of more than 65 million gallons of acidic process water into the Tampa Bay estuary. The case involved complex scientific issues in the disciplines of ichthyology, benthic ecology, marine biology, physical oceanography, estuarine science, and commercial fishing economics. Following an early dismissal obtained by GT, the case was appealed, ultimately rising to the Florida Supreme Court to address a question of great public importance regarding a key issue in Florida environmental law. See, Curd v. Mosaic Fertilizer, LLC, 39 So. 3d 1216 (Fla. 2010). Addressing Florida’s environmental strict liability statute, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that only a limited class of consisting of commercial fishermen could proceed under Section 376.3113, Florida Statutes, and the Court adopted a definition of damages that precludes personal injury under the statute, thus creating a new defense to Florida environmental claims. Following the Florida Supreme Court’s ruling, the action was remanded to the trial court as a limited, putative class. The Plaintiffs then filed a motion to join over 100 new plaintiffs in an effort to avoid the class certification process, which GT successfully opposed, and the Plaintiffs again appealed. The Second District Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court ruling denying joinder. See, Anderson v. Mosaic Fertilizer, LLC, 160 So. 3d 419 (Fla. 2d DCA 2015) (table decision). The Plaintiffs then finally sought to certify the putative class, which the trial court granted, but which GT successfully decertified on appeal. See Mosaic Fertilizer, LLC v. Curd, et al. 259 So. 3d 239 (Fla. 2d DCA 2018). Here, GT addressed key areas of Florida class action law, with which the appellate court agreed on the following important points: (1) class representatives must provide a reasonable methodology for proving class wide impact, (2) the class representatives evidence did not satisfy that requirement, (3) the Florida Supreme Court decision in Engle v. Liggett Group, Inc., 945 So. 2d 1246 (Fla. 2006), is unique and does not necessarily authorize bifurcation as a means of satisfying the predominance requirement, and (4) the trial court left for later what it was required to do at the class certification hearing, but failed to do. Following class decertification, the Plaintiffs once more sought to intervene plaintiffs, which the trial court denied. A putative class action that once had more than 1,000 members and covered more than 400 square miles of Florida geography was now a case comprised of only seven Plaintiffs. Anderson v. Mosaic Fertilizer, LLC is a follow-on case that was filed after decertification of the putative class in Curd. After the District Court dismissed Plaintiffs’ Complaint with prejudice, GT negotiated a settlement that resolved all claims with no monetary contribution from GT’s client and resolved 16 years of litigation.
- Franco v. Coronet Industries, Inc. Defended chemical company in mass-toxic-tort action with more than 1,100 plaintiffs asserting wrongful death, personal injury, medical monitoring, and property damage. Plaintiffs’ claims arose out of alleged contamination of groundwater, surface water, soil, and air in a large area previously mined for phosphate surrounding a facility that manufactured phosphate-based animal feed supplements and other chemical products. Plaintiffs demanded approximately $250 million in personal injury damages, property damages, and medical monitoring. GT obtained the entry of one of Florida’s first Lone Pineorders, requiring plaintiffs to substantiate their allegations of injury and causation or be subject to dismissal, which resulted in the dismissal of more than 300 plaintiffs. We also employed an offer of judgment strategy that resulted in the dismissal of more than 300 additional plaintiffs through de minimis The remaining claims were settled pursuant to a confidential settlement agreement, which took more than two years to negotiate and was favorable to our client. The action against our client was publicly promoted by environmental activist Erin Brockovich.
- Representation of a chemical and manufacturing company in connection with a 1,000+ plaintiff mass tort action involving wrongful death, personal injury, medical monitoring, and property damage claims.
- Representation of a large Nebraska agricultural equipment manufacturer in a mass toxic tort action for damages allegedly caused by a release of chlorinated solvent, as well as related negotiations with the Environmental Protection Agency.
- Representation of a chemical and phosphate company in matters involving mining rights in central and southwest Florida, including litigating, negotiating, permitting, and resolving matters involving several counties, a regional water authority, and multiple regulatory agencies.
- Representation of a chemical and phosphate company in a lawsuit filed by an individual alleging that he developed leukemia as a result of exposure to chemicals in the air and groundwater purportedly released from the company’s facility.
- Defended a company in an environmental justice mass tort claim brought by individuals alleging property damage and personal injuries purportedly resulting from contamination of soil, groundwater, and surface water in their residential neighborhood.
- Defeated class certification in multi-district litigation filed against various petroleum companies for purported Methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE)groundwater contamination in which the cost of the injunctive relief sought in Florida alone exceeded $100 million.
- Defended a claim to pierce a parent company’s corporate veil and secured approval of a permanent “channeling” injunction barring future mass tort claims against the parent.
- Defended against claims by more than 150 plaintiffs arising out of the release of approximately 50 million gallons of process water into a river.
- Represented the corporate parent of a debtor subsidiary in proceedings before the bankruptcy court for approval of a trust fund for future mass tort liabilities arising from chlorinated solvent groundwater contamination.
- Currently representing the former owners of an oil refinery in Oklahoma where the Environmental Protection Agency, the state environmental agency, and the Natural Resources Trustee are seeking $65 million for past and future response costs and alleged natural resource damages.
- Representation of a phosphate and chemical company in a lawsuit filed by an insurance company seeking recovery of past and future investigative, remediation, and removal costs under CERCLA and state law.
- Representation of an owner of mineral rights, including rights to Marcellus Shale gas underlying 187,000 acres of national forest land, in litigation with the U.S. Forest Service and environmental groups over access pending completion of an environmental impact statement.
- Represented a paper recycler in connection with the Lower Fox River and Green Bay Superfund and Natural Resources Damages site and obtained summary judgment in our client’s favor in a contribution action brought by two other responsible parties.
- Represented a liquidating trust in a nationally significant environmental cost recovery case; after an eight-week trial, the court found the trust liable for only 1.72 percent of the $33 million cleanup, millions less than sought at trial. We also prevailed in a subsequent summary judgment motion dismissing the remainder of the claim.
- Represented a landowner in litigation against a neighboring spent mushroom substrate processor over runoff and property damage and obtained a shut-down of the offending facility.
- Represented a gas pipeline company in an appeal from a demand for air pollution permits for maintenance of compressor station turbines.
- Represented a seller of 15 manufacturing facilities in multiple lawsuits seeking recovery for alleged misrepresentations regarding environmental conditions.
- Represented an industrial facility operator in a citizen suit challenge to the location of a sludge incinerator on land allegedly impressed with “public trust.”
- Achieved a 99.9 percent reduction of a $44 million penalty action for alleged violations of the PSD provisions of the CAA.
- Settled a permit appeal by a chemical manufacturer over conditions imposed in a RCRA permit to burn hazardous waste in boilers.
- Representing multinational manufacturing company in a multi-state federal criminal investigation concerning alleged violations of the RCRA.
- Obtained declination from the Department of Justice for client who had received a target letter in connection with alleged false statements to a federal agent and violations of RCRA.
- Represented employees of an international pesticide company, which was the subject of a federal investigation for alleged environmental crimes. The Justice Department pursued criminal charges against the company in connection with catastrophic personal injuries suffered by members of a family who stayed in a resort condominium complex in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The investigation resulted in a plea agreement with the company which included payment of criminal fines, restitution, and a community service project totaling $10 million. No GT clients were charged.
- Represented individuals in a federal criminal investigation involving alleged Clean Air Act violations in the District of Puerto Rico.
- Defended chief officer of foreign flagged ship in vessel pollution prosecution under federal criminal laws.
- Represented a multinational corporation in a criminal investigation concerning alleged RCRA violations, as well as civil enforcement involving a proposed penalty of more than $2 million.
- Represented client in criminal investigation by the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation concerning construction incident that resulted in deaths of protected wildlife and destruction of protected habitat. No charges were filed against our client.
- Represented employees of an international pesticide company in connection with a federal investigation of alleged environmental crimes. Our clients were employees of a company that subcontracted one of its fumigation projects to an independent contractor. The Department of Justice pursued criminal charges against the independent contractor and two of its employees in connection with personal injuries suffered by a family member who lived in a house that was fumigated. The federal investigation resulted in a plea agreement that included prison sentences for the two employees of the independent contractor that had performed the fumigation. No charges were filed against our clients.
- Represented senior manager of a chemical plant in a federal criminal investigation arising out of a 20-million-pound chemical release from a Louisiana pipeline.
- Representing clients in multiple criminal environmental investigations involving facilities in several U.S. and foreign jurisdictions.
- Representing a real estate developer in a grand jury investigation of alleged criminal violations of the CWA.
- Provided a pre-indictment defense of a specialty chemical manufacturer for violations of U.S. customs law regarding the importation of various chemicals.
- Negotiated a civil resolution with the state attorney general’s economic crimes division of claims involving alleged misbranding of fish by a national food service distributor.
- Avoided criminal enforcement against a chemical company through an internal investigation and subsequent voluntary disclosure to governmental authorities.