Environmental Litigation

Cermak & Inglin, LLP, has an experienced team of lawyers who regularly handle environmental litigation in state and federal courts and before administrative bodies. The Firm’s lawyers have expertise in navigating the complex technical issues that typically arise in environmental litigation, such as vapor intrusion modeling, analyzing groundwater contamination fate and transport, fingerprinting of contaminant sources, and developing alternative investigative and remedial approaches. The Firm’s lawyers also understand that environmental litigation can implicate a wide variety of related issues, including insurance, real estate, corporate successorship, and bankruptcy, as well as requiring the development of information about historic operations which can extend as far back as the early 1800s.

The team therefore regularly works with experts in a variety of disciplines, including hydrology, geology, hydrogeology, mining, vapor intrusion, risk assessments, historic operations, environmental remediation, and cost analysis.

Our Approach

In handling environmental litigation, we are well aware of the high costs of litigation. We focus on developing, from the outset, a strategy that is creative, brings our decades of experience to bear and is cost-effective. We look for solutions that both place our client in the most favorable position from a litigation perspective, but also, where appropriate, results in a negotiated resolution favorable to our client. In this process, we work closely with clients’ internal counsel and technical teams, and a variety of technical consultants and experts.

We also regularly mediate cases to resolution. In settling cases, we seek to carefully craft settlements that anticipate future events, such as the insolvency of a work party, emerging chemicals, and a changing regulatory landscape.

The Types of Environmental Litigation We Handle

Our attorneys have decades of combined experience representing clients in environmental litigation, including:

• Superfund litigation under both CERCLA and state equivalent statutes seeking cost recovery.
• Citizen suits filed under federal environmental laws such as the Clean Water Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.
• Common law tort actions, involving allegations of negligence, nuisance and trespass.
• Toxic tort litigation.
• Claims under state statutes, such as California’s Proposition 65.
• Appellate court challenges to agency rulemaking.
• Civil penalty actions under federal and state statutes.
• Federal and state administrative proceedings, including enforcement actions and appeals.

Representative Matters

• Defend client (an aerospace company) as the former lessee of multiple industrial properties occupied at various times from the 1950s to 1990s in cost recovery action brought by property owner under California’s Hazardous Substances Account Act and common law causes of action.
• Defend aerospace company in class action toxic tort suit (as co-counsel with a large national firm) asserting common law claims of negligence, nuisance and trespass as a result of groundwater contamination and associated vapor intrusion, and property damage claims.
• Defend paper company in CERCLA cost-recovery action seeking over $1 billion in costs relating to PCBs in river and lake sediments extending down an 80-mile stretch of river.
• Defend toxic tort suits by homeowners relating to contamination associated with former wood treatment facility.
• Defend manufacturer in a CERCLA cost recovery action involving one of the largest contaminated groundwater basins in the United States used for drinking water.
• Defend client against “citizen suit” action brought by State of Ohio seeking injunctive relief and civil penalties pursuant to RCRA and the CWA.
• Brief and argue petitions for review challenging rules issued by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) pursuant to CERCLA, RCRA, CAA, CWA, TSCA and the SDWA in federal appellate courts throughout the country.
• Prosecute and defend cost-recovery actions under CERCLA and equivalent state statutes, such as California’s Superfund law known as the Hazardous Substances Account Act, in courts throughout the United.
• Prosecute and defend cost-recovery actions under CERCLA and state law equivalents throughout the United States for clients in a variety of industries, including oil refiners, chemical manufacturers, automobile manufacturers, paper manufacturers, hazardous waste transporters, and paint manufacturers.
• Defend clients in enforcement actions by federal and state agencies, including EPA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Department of Toxic Substances Control, regional water quality control boards and the air quality management districts, seeking injunctive relief and civil penalties.