Blog

Government Often Keeps Us in the Dark Is your government protecting you? If your air or water is contaminated, and your government knows it, it’ll tell you, right? Sadly, the answer to these questions is often, “no”. I’ve represented thousands of families over the last 18 years who have disc...

How long after the discovery of chemical contamination in groundwater should the government be checking to see if those chemicals have turned into a gas (“vapor”), and migrated upward to intrude into the breathing space of homes? They shouldn’t wait a quarter of a century, that’s for sure. N...

The US Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) continues to provide very valuable information about consumer products which are recalled for the threats they pose to the health of their users, and perhaps others. For example, CPSC reports that, over just the last two weeks, tens of thousands of p...

All landfills produce gas. The decomposition of the garbage dumped there sets off a chemical process that produces potentially many different kinds of gasses. If you live near a landfill-particularly near an older or still operating landfill-you should be concerned about whether the landfill’s gas...

One of the surest topics on which to get agreement is that we should punish the filing of “frivolous” lawsuits. There are legitimate debates to be had over the definition of “frivolous”, who decides what is “frivolous”, and what the punishment (usually called a “sanction”) should be....

I strongly believe that there is. As a lawyer who has represented many thousands of families victimized by contamination of their air and water, I see the same things happening over and over again: ·Poor, inner-city minorities are disproportionately the victims of these environmental problems. To a...

It’s such a compelling story: A 10-years-in-the-making plan to pour $1 billion into the redevelopment of Jordan Downs, a once-dangerous, crime-ridden public housing project in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, that had been the stage for nationally-televised riots in the 1960s. The idea is to...

“Does this chemical cause cancer?” is one of the first questions I get from a mom or dad who has just learned that, unbeknownst to them, a toxic chemical from an industrial source has been in their family’s air or water supply for years. I always caution that, even if the chemical(s) just disc...

If you live near a landfill, this is a scenario you should be concerned about: ·The landfill began accepting waste before 1990. ·Groundwater in your area flows from the landfill in the direction of your home. ·The groundwater is your home’s water supply and/or the groundwater is very shallow (5...

Jennifer Flory of Illinois thought she was getting her daughter, Alison, the help she needed when she sent Alison to what had been advertised as a home for addiction treatment in South Florida. Sadly, however, Alison died from a drug overdose, smoking crack cocaine laced with an opiate. Jennifer lea...