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October 29, 2026
CINCINNATI — The Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied the United States’ petition for permission to appeal two trial court orders denying its motions to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction claims by Flint, Mich., residents in a consolidated Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) lawsuit alleging negligence on the part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency when responding to the city’s water crisis, which arose after the city switched the source of its water supply.
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October 28, 2026
OXFORD, Miss. — Six cases accusing companies associated with a facility in Water Valley, Miss., of “poisoning the people, environment, and the community” with trichloroethylene (TCE) vapors were the latest in more than a dozen to be remanded by a federal judge in Mississippi for lack of jurisdiction.
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October 28, 2026
NEWARK, N.J. — Consumers who allege that they suffered hair loss after using TRESemmé shampoo and/or conditioner containing DMDM hydantoin filed substantially similar complaints in a federal court in New Jersey after a judge ruled that “individual and separate [c]omplaints” were needed as the plaintiffs were “improperly joined.”
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October 28, 2026
HONOLULU — The Hawaii Supreme Court in a ruling addressing a nearly three-decade-long pesticide exposure case by banana plantation workers said the appropriate approach to causation in mass toxic tort cases is set out in comment g in Section 26 of the Restatement (Third) of Torts: Liability for Physical and Emotional Harm, but that the three factors must be considered in a different order.
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October 28, 2026
HOUSTON — A business development manager sued her employer in a Texas court alleging injury and retaliation after she filed a workers’ compensation claim in connection with injuries she alleged that she suffered after being told during a training tour of a Wyoming facility to place her head into multiple frac tanks without any personal protective equipment (PPE).
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October 27, 2026
INDIANAPOLIS — An Indiana federal judge granted a motion by a trio of companies linked to E.I. duPont De Nemours and Co. accused of fraudulently transferring assets to avoid liability for litigation pertaining to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) environmental contamination pending a Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML or JPMDL) decision on the companies’ motion to transfer the cases to a pending PFAS-related MDL.
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October 27, 2026
CHICAGO — In a pair of rulings in a multidistrict litigation in which consumers allege wrongful death and other injuries from endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) in chemical hair relaxers (CHRs), a federal judge in Illinois stated that the parties agreed on the final five bellwether cases and, addressing a motion to exclude the 10 general causation experts, partly denied the motion as to two of the experts presented by the consumers.
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October 26, 2026
\PORTLAND, Ore. — Amazon Data Services (ADS) and a group of residents from in and around the Lower Umatilla Basin separately filed oppositions on Oct. 23 to omnibus motions filed by the Port of Morrow, agricultural companies, food processors and an electric utility to compel discovery or modify a stay in two related putative class action suits in Oregon federal court alleging violations of state law and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) over alleged groundwater contamination.
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October 26, 2026
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — On remand from the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals and after the U.S. Supreme Court denied a petition for a writ of certiorari brought by Union Carbide Corp. and an affiliate, a West Virginia federal judge denied a plaintiff’s motion to certify a class of approximately 37,000 people allegedly exposed to ethylene oxide (EtO) and denied her motion to redefine the class as based on a “blatantly false” argument.
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October 22, 2026
CHICAGO — An insurer has no duty to defend or indemnify its insureds for an underlying lead paint bodily injury suit because the policies’ lead contamination exclusions clearly apply to relieve the insurer of any duty to defend or indemnify, an Illinois federal judge said in granting the insurer’s motion for judgment on the pleadings.
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October 22, 2026
CINCINNATI — A Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel in a divided decision enabled a putative class action lawsuit to proceed against nine Michigan corrections officials but ruled that five others were entitled to immunity on certain claims in a lawsuit alleging that they had knowledge of but failed to remediate mold at a women’s prison, which has allegedly sickened multiple inmates.
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October 20, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal magistrate judge dismissed with prejudice an insured’s claims against an insurer for breach of contract, bad faith and declaratory relief following the parties’ settlement of a dispute over insurance coverage for underlying suits related to exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) allegedly contained in aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) that was manufactured and sold by the insured.
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October 20, 2026
LANSING, Mich. — In response to a motion for partial summary judgment filed in Michigan federal court by insurers in a coverage dispute stemming from lead-contaminated water supplied by an insured city, the underlying plaintiffs say the city’s insurers have a duty to defend the city and pay for the $25 million consent settlement reached by the city and underlying plaintiffs as consequential damages because the insurers failed to show that no coverage is afforded for the underlying class actions filed against the city.
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October 19, 2026
LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles County residents sued Sterigenics U.S. LLC and others in a California court alleging that the operators of sterilization facilities use inadequate technologies to reduce ethylene oxide (EtO) gas emissions, thereby causing the plaintiffs serious and fatal diseases.
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October 19, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and/or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) diagnoses who alleged, through their guardians ad litem, that the cause was the consumption of baby food products containing lead and arsenic failed to identify general causation evidence sufficient to support their claims, a federal judge in California ruled, granting the defendants’ motion for summary judgment in the multidistrict litigation.
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October 19, 2026
POCATELLO, Idaho — An Idaho man who alleges that his repeated exposure to an herbicide containing glyphosate caused his non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) may proceed with his negligence and design defect claims following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Monsanto v. Durnell as “[t]he Supreme Court’s decision was sufficiently tailored” and none of the plaintiff’s “claims are preempted by virtue of Durnell except those specifically related to a failure to warn claim based on labeling,” a federal judge in Idaho ruled, partially granting and partially denying Monsanto Co. summary judgment.
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October 16, 2026
INDIANAPOLIS — In a flurry of recent activity in a case alleging fraudulent transfer of assets involving a trio of former E.I. duPont De Nemours and Co. companies attempting to avoid liability for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) environmental contamination, a federal judge granted a restraining order limiting distribution of assets, stayed that ruling and the defendants appealed the decision and asked the federal judge in Indiana overseeing the matter to stay the case pending possible transfer to multidistrict litigation.
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October 16, 2026
MIAMI — A plaintiff on behalf of a minor with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) sued Gerber Products Co. and Nestlé Usa Inc. in a Florida federal court, alleging that the defendants knowingly sold baby food products that were contaminated with toxic heavy metals and that the defendants’ systematic neurodevelopmental poisoning of infants has contributed in part to the unprecedented epidemic of ASD and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) spreading throughout the country.
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October 16, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims affirmed a Board of Veterans Appeals (BVA) decision denying a veteran’s claim for benefits based on service-linked hypertension allegedly caused by exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) found at Seneca Army Depot where he was stationed approximately 25 years before PFAS was found at the base.
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October 16, 2026
PHILADELPHIA — A split Pennsylvania appeals court on Oct. 15 affirmed a trial court’s $725 million judgment for a service station worker diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and $500,000 for the man’s wife after a jury determined that Exxon Mobil Corp.’s predecessor in interest manufactured and sold defective gasoline containing benzene.
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October 15, 2026
MIAMI — A Florida federal judge issued an order setting a schedule for bellwether jury trials in a mass action brought by current and former servicemembers and their family members against several military housing companies who owned, operated and managed their rental housing at Naval Air Station Key West (NAS Key West) and are accused of concealing toxic mold, asbestos and other conditions at the properties that caused the plaintiffs to suffer various health consequences and emotional distress.
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October 13, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 13 granted Monsanto Co.’s petition for a writ of certiorari in a case brought by a man who says he developed cancer after exposure to the active ingredient in Roundup, vacated the judgment that followed a $28 million combined award for the man and remanded the case to a California appellate court for further consideration in light of the June 25 decision in Monsanto Co. v. Durnell.
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October 13, 2026
LOS ANGELES — A California federal judge denied a motion to dismiss or stay a lawsuit pending resolution of a parallel action in Georgia state court after determining that a stay or dismissal is not warranted because it is not clear that all of the issues in the California federal suit related to various insurers’ duty to defend an insured in underlying silica bodily injury suits will be resolved in the Georgia suit.
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October 13, 2026
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Primary and umbrella insurers filed suit in a Virginia federal court seeking a declaration that they have no duty to defend or indemnify their insured, a stone product supplier, against underlying silica bodily injury suits because their policies’ exclusions for silica and pollution bar coverage.
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October 09, 2026
NEW YORK — A New York federal judge dismissed a town’s putative class action lawsuit against several telecommunications companies for public nuisance, negligence and trespass caused by the companies’ alleged practice of abandoning “toxic lead-sheathed telecommunications cables” due to lack of standing after finding that the plaintiff’s injuries are “speculative” and that it did not bring factual allegations of “contamination.”