"Companies Face Billions in Damages as PFAS Lawsuits Flood Courts"

"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.

Source: Bloomberg Environment, 05/24/2022