Toxic Tort Litigation
In the most complex toxic tort cases, you need efficient, air-tight defense.
Experienced Toxic Tort Defense and Counsel
Every second of downtime in business is time and finances lost. That’s why our goal is to defeat or limit the scope of toxic tort cases for our clients as efficiently as possible. We provide defense and counsel for companies and insurers in the region’s major toxic tort class actions and mass joinder cases. Our toxic tort attorneys have handled matters involving thousands of plaintiffs and multiple defendants, complex scientific issues and massive document productions.
We are able to effectively present our client’s defense in large part due to our understanding of the science and medicine. Our lawyers work closely with subject matter authorities, including toxicologists, pulmonologists, air modelers, engineers, chemists, epidemiologists and others, and the medical causation issues typically present in these cases.
Trial Experience
Our trial lawyers have experience in class action, mass joinder and individual cases involving:
- Pipeline ruptures
- Facility releases
- Facility explosions
- Railcar accidents
- Various product and component exposures
- Off-site migration by water, air or land
Claims
We are experienced in handling a wide variety of claims stemming from toxic tort incidents:
- Physical property damage
- Diminution of property value
- “Stigma” damages
- Actual physical injury and fear of future injury
- Cancers, including leukemia and other blood diseases
- Pneumoconiosis
- Reactive airways dysfunction syndrome and reactive upper airways dysfunction syndrome (RADS and RUDS)
- Auto-immune dysfunction
- Neural tube defects
- Nerve damage
- Cognitive disabilities
- Chromosomal damage
- Minor complaints of temporary headaches, nausea and various other medical conditions
Experience
Successfully represented CF Industries, Inc. in defense of a case, initially filed as a class action, which involved the release of anhydrous ammonia. The incident resulted in approximately 2,500 individual claims for personal injury, business interruption, and inconvenience. The plaintiffs sought to certify a class consisting of persons within a fifteen mile area of the release site. Class certification was opposed and defeated.
Managed all asbestos personal injury litigation in Louisiana for Westinghouse Electric Corporation which involved 1,400 plaintiffs' claims, including service on the Medical Committee and responsibility for preparation of 130 plaintiffs' cases consolidated for trial. This also included trial responsibility for defense of 24 of 130 plaintiffs' medical claims in a six-month trial resulting in average low jury verdicts per plaintiff against national plaintiffs' attorney Ronald Motley.