Environmental Litigation and Toxic Torts

This course will examine how a complex environmental tort case unfolds from notice to appeal. Using as a learning tool Anderson v. Cryovac, the toxic tort case portrayed in the bestseller A Civil Action, and actual documents from the case, as well as supplemental substantive materials and current case examples, this course will illuminate key phases of the environmental litigation process. Investigation, pleadings, case management, class action and mass tort, management of complex document discovery, e-discovery, pre-trial advocacy and sophisticated application of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure will be a focus of classroom discussion. Other topics to be addressed will be the management of scientific and expert evidence, medical causation, analysis of liability and damages, and special characteristics of environmental tort claims. The interplay between environmental statutory regulation and the common law will be explored, as will trial and settlement of toxic tort cases.