LANSING, Mich. (Legal Newsline) – The State of Michigan is backing up its litigation over chemicals known as PFAS with new proposed legislation.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is among the government officials who have hired private lawyers on contingency fees to push PFAS lawsuits. The chemicals are found in firefighting foam, non-stick cookware and waterproof clothing, among other products.
They have made their way into groundwater and are likely in the bloodstreams of just about every American, though their exact health effects aren’t known and a consensus maximum contaminant level hasn’t been established.
The two new Michigan bills would:
-Expand Michigan’s ability to sue over sites where environmental remediation of other substances is already underway and give it a six-year timeframe from when remediation started to do so; and
-Start the statute of limitations for PFAS when they knew or should have known PFAS was released into the environment, as opposed to the date when it was leaked.
“This legislation offers the legal framework we need to not only ensure our residents have a fair process through which to make claims for damages from PFAS, but also to ensure the rest of our State’s taxpayers are not paying to clean up the messes caused by those who are responsible for the forever chemicals contaminating our environment,” Nessel said.
Her PFAS lawsuits recently survived motions to dismiss in Kent County, allowing discovery to proceed with defendants like 3M, Dow Chemical and DuPont.
Michigan’s lawsuits proceed as a federal court in South Carolina is overseeing federal multidistrict litigation by hundreds of plaintiffs who also claim they have been exposed to PFAS. A federal court in Ohio, meanwhile, is considering a proposed class action that would include virtually every person in the country since testing has found trace amounts of PFAS present in most adults.
Unlike traditional pollution cases, PFAS litigation generally doesn’t include allegations companies illegally disposed of the chemical. They are instead accused of legally selling a chemical they knew would contaminate groundwater and was toxic.
Michigan’s contingency fee lawyers, identified as special assistant attorneys general, include veteran litigator Richard Fields; attorneys from Keating Muething & Klekamp of Cincinnati; and DeCello Levitt Gutzler of Chicago.
Whether PFAS chemicals cause health problems at their current levels is yet to be decided, but it is still a favorite cause of Democrats in state leadership and Congress alike.
In Congress, Democrats last year tried to push through a measure that would have expanded liability to countless businesses but were turned back by Senate Republicans. Some state regulators have passed their own maximum contaminant levels much lower than a federal government advisory and hired private lawyers to file lawsuits.