Litigation in the area of environmental law is incredibly diverse. Attorneys in the Environmental Litigation and Mass Tort Practice Group are highly regarded litigators in the environmental arena, representing clients in civil and criminal environmental litigation before federal and state courts as well as administrative agencies. The more common categories of such litigation are discussed briefly below:

Cost Recovery Under CERCLA
The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) is likely responsible for more litigation than any other environmental statute. This includes the defense of both government and private party-instituted suits. In addition, parties subject to the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) corrective action program, which has no analogous private cost recovery/contribution mechanism, can be expected to turn to CERCLA for cost recovery from other potentially responsible parties. This is significant since the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that the RCRA corrective action program will soon dwarf the CERCLA program in terms of actual dollars spent on cleanup and remediation of contaminated facilities.

Enforcement Actions
Federal environmental laws have enforcement provisions, backed by substantial penalties. Thus, businesses may find themselves in a maze of negotiations with the government in the context of civil and criminal enforcement proceedings, penalty assessments, compliance and cleanup orders, as well as in actual litigation.  Private parties may also bring “citizen suits,” in the absence of proper government enforcement, against violators. Citizen suits have become extremely common under RCRA, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act.

Regulation Formation and Rulemaking Proceedings
Environmental regulations are generally very complex and have a significant impact on the regulated community.  Consequently, it is often in the interest of impacted industries to challenge the legality of such regulations. Thus, one sophisticated type of environmental litigation involves rulemaking proceedings, including petitions for review of final agency regulations.  Challenges to government regulations, however, are often uphill battles.  Gibson Dunn provides the expertise and guidance to launch the successful challenges necessary to attain desired objectives.

Toxic Tort Cases
Although federal and state environmental statutes provide numerous private causes of action, individuals often bring suit under common law tort principles to recover for injuries allegedly suffered as a result of exposure to toxic substances. Since these “toxic tort” cases usually involve complex and novel legal issues, litigation is often protracted and expensive. Additionally, class actions in the toxic tort arena are extremely common since the cases usually involve multiple plaintiffs with similar claims.

Gibson Dunn has substantial experience in toxic tort cases, including the recent representation of a large chemical manufacturer in a number of class actions—one of which included 8,000 plaintiffs, as well as the representation of a large energy company in eight toxic tort class actions arising from the operation of a Department of Energy facility.  In addition, we have handled numerous individual cases, including over 3,000 asbestos exposure cases.