News

Davis & Whitlock, P.C., is pleased to announce that Emily Stein, a NY-licensed attorney, has recently joined the firm as an associate attorney.  Emily holds an LL.M.  in Environmental Law & Policy from Lewis & Clark Law School and a J.D. from New York Law School. Following law school, Emily worked as a Staff Attorney for the New York State Court of Appeals and then relocated to the West Coast to specialize in environmental law, where she engaged in legal and advocacy work for various non-profits, including Western Resource Advocates, Recycle Utah, and the Surfrider Foundation. For the past few years, Emily has been pursuing a Ph.D. in Sweden, but is excited to be back in the U.S. and return to the practice of public interest environmental law with Davis & Whitlock.

In a precedent setting Order issued August 23, 2019, a federal judge has ruled that a lawsuit brought by a group of residents of Bennington and North Bennington, Vermont damaged by PFOA groundwater contamination can proceed against defendant Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics as a class action. These residents, who are represented by Davis & Whitlock, P.C. and Vermont law firms Langrock, Sperry, & Wool, LLP and Barr, Sternberg, Moss, Silver, & Munson P.C., seek property damages due to the contamination of their drinking water and medical monitoring due to their exposure to PFOA and increased risk of disease. As a result of this Order, Davis & Whitlock and its Vermont co-counsel will now pursue these claims against Saint-Gobain on behalf of all Bennington residents similarly impacted by this PFOA contamination.

Judge grants class status in Bennington PFOA lawsuit

https://vtdigger.org/2019/08/23/judge-grants-class-status-in-bennington-pfoa-lawsuit/

Davis & Whitlock, along with Alabama firms Friedman, Dazzio, Zulanas & Bowling, PC and the Cole Law Firm, is pleased to announce a settlement on behalf of West Morgan-East Lawrence Water and Sewer Authority in their PFAS lawsuit against the 3M Company Inc.

The settlement will ensure that WMEL can continue to supply safe drinking water for thousands of Alabama residents that depend on the Tennessee River as their main source of drinking water.

See the link for news about the settlement:

WMEL and 3M Reach Settlement

Gary Davis and Jeff Friedman (of Friedman Dazzio) led the trial team in securing a jury verdict against Jacobs Engineering Group, Inc., in the four-week Phase I trial for 70 coal ash cleanup workers sickened by their exposure to the 5.4 million cubic yards of coal fly ash released by TVA at the Kingston Plant in December 2008. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee jury found Jacobs negligent for failing to protect the workers from exposure to the fly ash and found that exposure to coal fly ash can cause 10 different diseases suffered by the workers, including lung cancer and leukemia. Phase II of the trial will be for specific causation, compensatory damages, and punitive damages.

Plaintiffs proved that Jacobs deliberately manipulated or tampered with personal air monitoring results; did not inform TVA safety officials of repeated complaints regarding health problems due to fly ash; failed to comply with the provisions of the safety and health plan with respect to the voluntary use of dust masks; threatened workers when they asked for dust masks or respirators; communicated to workers that fly ash was safe to consume; and otherwise failed to train or warn workers about the dangers of excessive fly-ash exposure. Davis and Friedman were also the lead counsel in the successful 2011 bench trial against TVA on behalf of property owners in the vicinity of the coal fly ash disaster site. That liability judgment resulted in a $27.8 million settlement for the property owners.

See the link for news about the jury verdict: https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/crime/2018/11/07/verdict-reached-favor-sickened-workers-coal-ash-cleanup-lawsuit/1917514002/