We Shouldn't Be Surprised the Massachusetts AG Is Doing to PFAS Manufacturers What a Prior AG Did to Tobacco Manufacturers but It's Still Notable!

Within the mid-Nineties the Massachusetts Lawyer Common, Scott Harshbarger, made nationwide information by suing tobacco producers for, amongst different issues, the monumental well being care prices borne by the Commonwealth ensuing from tobacco-related sicknesses. In the end Massachusetts and most different states of the union entered right into a landmark settlement resolving the Commonwealth’s claims.

Now Lawyer Common Maura Healey is becoming a member of different Attorneys Common in working the identical play in opposition to producers of PFAS the eternally (and almost all over the place) chemical substances which have dominated a lot of the general public’s and regulators’ consideration over the previous a number of years.

Lawyer Common Healey has filed swimsuit within the Federal Court docket in South Carolina dealing with what could finally be hundreds of PFAS contamination circumstances from across the nation.

Like tobacco, it’s nonetheless completely authorized to fabricate PFAS and put them in commerce. And, although it’s on the best way to doing so, the federal authorities nonetheless hasn’t recognized them as a hazardous substance coated by the federal regulation referring to the identification and clear up of contaminated properties.

However Massachusetts has recognized a number of PFAS as hazardous, the necessities of the Massachusetts clear up program have utilized to PFAS for a number of years and, as David Abel studies in The Boston Globe, the federal, state and native governments have already spent tens of millions of {dollars} cleansing up PFAS within the Bay State.

The Lawyer Common’s lawsuit faces some challenges. First, proving one thing was carried out “knowingly” isn’t as simple as one would possibly suppose. Second, as a result of PFAS have solely lately ended up on federal and state regulatory radar screens, it is not as clear as one would possibly suppose that a few of the legal guidelines referenced by the Lawyer Common truly apply. Third, as a result of there are already a whole lot of circumstances within the South Carolina courtroom, litigating the case might take years. Fourth, as a result of federal and state {dollars} have been used to cope with PFAS, presenting and recovering damages will probably be a chore.

And, in fact, there may be the truth that lawsuits like this one are an existential menace to those that have put PFAS in commerce so they are going to spare no expense on protection.

However none of that implies that the lawsuit wasn’t value bringing. We’ll see whether or not there are different parallels to the tobacco litigation of the Nineties. 

“For many years, these producers knew in regards to the severe dangers … but they did nothing about it,” Healey stated in an announcement. “Because of this deception, our municipalities are spending tens of millions of {dollars} to offer protected consuming water to their residents. I’m suing at present to carry these producers accountable, require them to pay the rising prices these communities are shouldering, and restore our state’s treasured pure sources which have been broken by these unlawful actions.”