Toxic Tort

Our trial lawyers have considerable experience in chemical exposure and toxic tort cases. Lathrop & Gage has a long history of representing manufacturers, distributors, formulators and applicators of agrichemical products. We have defended hundreds of personal injury and property damage claims involving asbestos and asbestos products. 

We also have extensive technical knowledge in the fields of soil and groundwater contamination, risk assessment and epidemiology, and we regularly defend toxic tort claims asserted in connection with Superfund sites.

Representative Experience:

• Successfully defended one of the world’s largest producers of pork in a nuisance case brought in Jackson County, Missouri. Plaintiffs were neighbors of one of our client’s farms and claimed they were damaged by odor from the 80,000 hogs, waste lagoons, and application of manure-based fertilizer at the farm. They sought damages of $20 million, but we obtained a total defense verdict. We are defending the company in several similar lawsuits.
• Defeated an effort to certify a class of potentially more than 1,000 homeowners whose property surrounded a landfill on nuisance and trespass claims. Nine plaintiffs filed a property damage lawsuit against our client, a major waste services company, alleging nuisance and trespass due to dust, dirt, debris, litter and noxious odors, allegedly emanating from the Mallard Lake Landfill in DuPage County, Illinois. The plaintiffs moved to certify a class. DuPage County Judge Terence M. Sheen denied their motion, and the case soon settled.
• Negotiated voluntary dismissals, without any payment to plaintiffs, for an alleged successor to a chemical company as a defendant in two multi-party toxic tort lawsuits.
• Represented a major waste removal company in a class-action toxic tort case involving allegations of groundwater contamination. Specifically, the plaintiffs alleged vinyl chloride found in private drinking water came from a landfill operated by this client. We prevailed on a motion to dismiss.
• Obtained dismissal for one of the largest railroad networks in North America in a multimillion-dollar class-action lawsuit filed by a group of residents in the city of Blackwell, Oklahoma, alleging 60 years of toxic contamination in the city caused by a former zinc smelter that shut down in 1974. The plaintiffs alleged that the smelter produced more than 58 million pounds of deadly toxins and posed a public health risk. The plaintiffs sought to certify a medical monitoring class. Lathrop & Gage’s client was dismissed from the case.