"For years, plaintiffs’ lawyers suing over health and environmental damage from so called forever chemicals, known collectively as PFAS, focused on one set of deep pockets — E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Co.
But over the past two years, there’s been a seismic shift in the legal landscape as awareness of PFAS has expanded. Corporations including 3M Co., Chemguard Inc., Kidde-Fenwal Inc., National Foam Inc., and Dynax Corp. are now being sued at roughly the same rate as DuPont, according to a Bloomberg Law analysis of more than 6,400 PFAS-related lawsuits filed in federal courts between July 2005 and March 2022.
If PFAS went into a company’s finished product, odds are it’s being sued. A federal judge overseeing thousands of PFAS cases put the risks bluntly.
“It does not take a genius to figure out that if certain motions don’t go their way, the defendants are in an existential threat to their survival,” Judge Richard Gergel said in a July 2019 proceeding."
Andrew Wallender reports for Bloomberg Environment May 23, 2022.
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