Plaintiff Lawyers and Environmental Litigation

Abstract

There seems to be a shift in the type of environmental lawsuits that many of our clients are being forced to defend. Most of the cases that we have worked on over the years involved a disagreement between two parties about known or discovered contamination, and the related costs of cleaning up that contamination. However heated the process became, there always was some scientific basis for the technical discussions and the ultimate goal was to pay for the cleanup of the site. During the past year we have seen a significant increase in environmental suits being filed by Plaintiff Attorneys. These suits are different. Several major differences discussed in this paper are: 1. Closed Sites – many of the sites have already been cleaned up and the regulators have been completely satisfied with the work. 2. Clean up costs are not an issue – the purpose of most of these suits is to compensate individuals not pay for the clean up. 3. More publicity – part of the process is to get the public excited about the issue. 4. The regulators are attacked– we may end up working closely with the regulators during the suit because that they have been portrayed as part of the problem. 5. Science is out the door – expert witnesses bring a new dimension to the litigation process The Plaintiff Lawyers that file these cases are well financed and organized. There are several organizations that have been set up to promote and facilitate the filing of suits against industrial clients. Examples in the paper will include “River Keepers” and “Estuary Keepers”. In addition, several law firms that have made large amounts of money from previous cases have been using that money to finance environmental cases. This process is detailed on many of their web sites. The main purpose of this paper is to make the reader aware of the new and different aspects of these Plaintiff Lawyer suits. As consulting firms get involved with these types of environmental suits they will have to make adjustments on how they complete their assignments. The first step to making those adjustments is to understand and recognize this new type of litigation.