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July 30, 2026
CINCINNATI — No coverage is afforded for an underlying water contamination suit filed against an insured because coverage is barred by the pollution exclusions included in primary and excess insurance policies, the insurers maintain in a suit filed in Ohio federal court.
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July 30, 2026
ORLANDO, Fla. — A federal judge in Florida issued an omnibus order explaining and memorializing three rulings made during a jury trial that ended in a verdict for Lockheed Martin Corp. on claims that contaminants from an Orlando facility resulted in three children’s birth defects and developmental delays.
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July 29, 2026
CHICAGO — A woman who alleges that her infant daughter developed necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) after consuming cow’s milk-based-infant formula (CMBF) manufactured by Abbott Laboratories Inc. before passing away did not show that an alternative warning label would have prevented her child’s death, the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held in affirming a grant of summary judgment for the manufacturer in the first bellwether case in multidistrict litigation pending in Illinois.
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July 29, 2026
NEW ORLEANS — A Louisiana federal judge directed a seaman alleging serious health conditions and the owner of the vessel on which he was injured to meet for a settlement conference after granting the vessel owner’s motion for partial summary judgment as to the seaman’s claims for maintenance and cure benefits as to his pulmonological injuries but denying its motion for summary judgment as to causation of his neurological injuries, as to which the judge found material disputes of fact remain.
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July 29, 2026
BATON ROUGE, La. — A federal judge in Louisiana recused a magistrate judge overseeing a lawsuit filed by a group of residents and property owners of a Baton Rouge-area subdivision against two Exxon entities over property damages and injuries allegedly caused by hazardous waste contamination because the magistrate judge’s wife represents the defendants in a similar case involving overlapping issues that is pending before another section of the court.
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July 29, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal magistrate judge dismissed an insured’s counterclaims for breach of contract and bad faith against an insurer and dismissed the insurer’s cross-claim for declaratory judgment against the insured after the parties agreed to settle their dispute over insurance coverage for underlying suits related to exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) allegedly contained in aqueous film-forming foams (AFFF) that were manufactured and sold by the insured.
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July 27, 2026
LOS ANGELES — A resident filed a putative class action complaint in California state court against the owners and operators of a refrigerated warehouse and companies responsible for a solar array on its roof, arguing that they are liable after a fire released a toxic plume of anhydrous ammonia, caused small explosions and forced local residents to evacuate their homes.
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July 27, 2026
HONOLULU — In another round of settlements in two consolidated lawsuits related to groundwater contamination from a jet fuel spill at the Pearl Harbor Naval Base, a federal judge in Hawaii approved two settlements between the U.S. government and 586 adults and 277 minors, while the parties stipulated to the dismissal with prejudice of another 834 plaintiffs.
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July 21, 2026
LOS ANGELES — In support of its argument that an interlocutory appeal is not warranted in a silica exposure coverage dispute, an insured filed a notice of supplemental authority, asking a California federal judge to take notice of a recent decision in a similar silica exposure coverage suit in which a judge denied an insurer’s motion for certification of interlocutory appeal.
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July 21, 2026
NORFOLK, Va. — A Virginia federal judge found that while the incorrect abstention doctrine was initially applied to determine whether federal jurisdiction is proper, it is still appropriate to exercise jurisdiction over the insurer’s suit, which seeks a declaration as to whether it owes coverage for underlying silica exposure suits filed against the insured.
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July 20, 2026
BOSTON — Ruling that General Electric Co. (GE) had “carried its burden to satisfy both the ‘acting under’ and ‘for or relating to’ elements of the federal officer removal statute,” a panel of the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals reversed a lower court’s decision that remanded a polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) injury lawsuit to Massachusetts state court and remanded the case to federal district court to determine whether GE has set forth a “colorable federal defense” related to its manufacture and disposal of PCBs.
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July 20, 2026
SAN ANTONIO — A U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel and his family sued the operators of privatized housing at Randolph Air Force Base in Texas federal court, alleging that they leased the family residences with mold, lead-based paint, structural deficiencies and other hazardous conditions while concealing the problems and making false representations about the homes' habitability.
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July 17, 2026
PHILADELPHIA — Ruling that neither the district court nor a state court has jurisdiction to enforce a subpoena against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency because sovereign immunity had not been waived, a Pennsylvania federal judge refused to compel the EPA to respond to document requests made in a lawsuit over alleged injury from exposure to ethylene oxide (EtO), and the judge remanded the case to state court for further proceedings.
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July 17, 2026
PHILADELPHIA — Residents filed a putative class action complaint in Pennsylvania state court alleging that an energy company and its affiliate contaminated local groundwater with toxins when a storage tank they operate leaked gasoline and petroleum products into the environment and that the defendants concealed information about the leak from regulators and the public.
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July 16, 2026
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Coal miners with black lung and Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. filed a joint stipulation of dismissal with prejudice in West Virginia federal court, ending the miners’ putative class action lawsuit that had alleged that Kennedy violated federal law when he terminated the majority of staff at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Respiratory Health Division in Morgantown, W.Va.
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July 15, 2026
ROME, Ga. — A federal judge in Georgia denied the bulk of a series of summary judgment motions filed by several chemical manufacturers in a lawsuit brought by Summerville, Ga., water and sewer subscribers and ratepayers over the manufacturers’ alleged roles in contaminating the groundwater with toxic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), allowing most of the claims to proceed to trial.
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July 08, 2026
LOS ANGELES — A California federal judge denied an insurer’s motion for certification for an interlocutory appeal of an order in which the judge found that silica and total pollution exclusions do not bar coverage for underlying silica bodily injury suits filed against an insured after determining that the insurer failed to show that the order presents substantial grounds for a difference of opinion.
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July 08, 2026
ST. LOUIS — A federal judge in Missouri has issued orders appointing a special master and establishing a qualified settlement fund to administer a settlement reached between Doe Run Resources Corp. and its affiliates, and Catholic clergywomen and Peruvian children in a long-running lawsuit over allegations of injuries from a lead smelter Doe Run and its affiliates operated in Peru.
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July 06, 2026
CINCINNATI — The Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that a lower court did not abuse its discretion when it severed and remanded to state court Michigan’s claims against the Gerald R. Ford International Airport Authority (GFIAA) related to groundwater contamination from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) because the court “identified the relevant statutory grounds, tied them to its severance analysis, and relied on the unusual posture of a once remanded state enforcement action returning to federal court through third-party removal.”
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July 02, 2026
TRENTON, N.J. — In two settlement agreements approved by a federal judge, a group of publicly owned wastewater and sewage authorities and 18 New Jersey counties will rescind objections to judicial consent orders proposed by the state to settle federal claims against 3M and several DuPont-affiliated chemical companies related to contamination from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from activity at DuPont’s Chambers Works plant in exchange for the state shelling out millions of dollars for cleanup projects, clean-water infrastructure and liability protection.
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July 01, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on June 30 granted petitions for a writ of certiorari in three cases alleging injuries related to the herbicide Roundup and remanded all three for further consideration in light of the recent ruling in Monsanto Co. v. Durnell.
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June 30, 2026
CHICAGO — The Class Action Fairness Act’s (CAFA) mass action local event or occurrence exception is jurisdictional and applies in a lawsuit over a weeklong industrial facility fire in Richmond, Ind., as “the fire is ‘an event or occurrence’ from which all claims in the action arose,” a Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled, addressing a question it said was one of first impression and finding that the trial court did not err by raising the question of the mass action exception sua sponte.
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June 30, 2026
DENVER — A 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel reversed and remanded a New Mexico federal judge’s dismissal of a lawsuit filed by the United States challenging a state agency’s definition of hazardous waste in a renewed permit issued to the Cannon Air Force Base (AFB). The panel held that the judge erred in ruling that the case had to be heard in the New Mexico Court of Appeals and was wrong to decline to hear the case because of a related state court proceeding.
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June 30, 2026
PADUCAH, Ky. — A ferrosilicon producer in a pollution cleanup coverage dispute filed its third summary judgment motion, opposing a reinsurer’s bid for dismissal and arguing that the contractual record establishes that the reinsurer assumed an insurer’s liabilities under a pollution legal liability policy and cannot avoid the suit by relying on an affidavit addressing discovery-barred topics or on inapposite reinsurance authority.
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June 29, 2026
HARRISBURG, Pa. — A Pennsylvania appellate panel has remanded a benzene injury case to the trial court with instructions that it issue a supplemental opinion to provide findings of fact and conclusions of law addressing forum non conveniens factors that the panel said the trial court did not adequately analyze in its ruling denying a defendant’s motion to dismiss.