PFAS Lawsuits Involve New and Untested Legal Theories

Tuesday, January 2nd, 2024 -- 9:00 AM

(Rob Mentzer, Wisconsin Public Radio) The individuals and municipalities involved in lawsuits over PFAS contamination face yearslong litigation in complex cases that could involve new and untested legal theories, experts say.

According to Rob Mentzer with Wisconsin Public Radio, increasing awareness of the risks of chemical contamination by the class of synthetic chemicals widely used in household products has led to thousands of lawsuits across the nation.

Late last month, the city of Wausau filed suit against 15 manufacturers and another 61 insurance companies. It is the latest PFAS lawsuit in Wisconsin, and follows legal action by the city of Eau Claire, residents in the town of Campbell, residents near Rhinelander and others.

Such lawsuits are typically targeted at manufacturers, including 3M or Tyco, known to have produced PFAS. In some cases, companies have chosen to settle similar lawsuits on the local and national levels.

But the path to resolution takes years and involves complex scientific and legal work. In the case of the Wausau lawsuit, for example, individual manufacturers may argue that their company is not responsible for the contamination but another company is.

In the legal process known as discovery, both sides would try to bolster their claims by seeking company records and performing complex scientific testing on the city's water, which in 2022 was found to be contaminated with PFAS in all its municipal wells.

"There can be some ability to trace that, because each company would be producing, potentially, different types of PFAS that could be linked back to them," said Steph Tai, a law professor and associate dean of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an expert on environmental law.

That process will likely involve opposing scientific experts from the plaintiffs and the defense.

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