Toxic Torts Claims

Toxic Tort Claims

What are toxic torts?

Toxic tort claims arise generally from corporations and businesses emphasizing profit over safety for their consumers, reflecting unwillingness by the producer of the products to police itself. Either through intentional cost-saving measures or negligence, corporations and businesses guilty of a toxic tort have ignored environmental and personal damage that may result from their products.

Toxic tort litigation can involve individual claims, but it is rare for toxic exposure to affect just one person, especially in cases of environmental contamination. The law provides for easy and convenient ways for groups of similarly injured people to bind together and bring their claims as a group class action (or mass joinder of claims).

Advances in corporate industry have seen the number of dangerous toxic substances in our environment grow. They can arise from environmental issues that affect water, soil and air, as well as personal consumer items and building materials used in homes and buildings.

Some of the toxic substances that have been shown to cause significant injury to people are: lead based paint, asbestos, pesticides such as dioxin and DDT, dry cleaning, other solvents, electro-magnetic fields from utility wires or major appliances, toxic landfill waste, various drugs and pharmaceuticals such as DES and tainted L-tryptophan, common industrial chemicals such as benzene and PCBs, heavy metals and other chemicals such as mercury and arsenic, latex exposure, sick building syndrome - including mold/fungal issues; silica - sellers of raw sand and silica-containing refractory products; repetitive-stress-injury such as repetitive keyboard syndrome.

Because of poor disposal of toxic substances and many corporations' unwillingness or inability to minimize toxic substances, more and more people at home and at work are being exposed to these toxic substances. Many effects of toxic exposure are permanent and irreversible. Unfortunately, some injuries do not show up for many years. A person who has been injured is entitled to be put into the position he or she was in before the toxic tort litigation, whether through economic compensation, medical care, or other means. This is the fundamental principle of toxic tort law.

Toxic tort litigation not only affords compensation for individuals injured but also makes the public aware of the activity of these corporations and businesses resulting in cessation of this activity as well as protective legislation.