October 25, 2017
Concern over GenX and its presence in Wilmington’s main drinking water source, the Cape Fear River, has given way to another pair of class actions.
Earlier this month, The Law Offices of James Scott Farrin, based in Durham, along with The Hannon Law Firm of Denver, filed a first class action against DuPont and its spinout, Chemours, over the release of toxic chemical GenX into the Cape Fear River.
While the first class action was filed on behalf of class members who are serviced by the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority (CFPUA), the second shows an even farther reach of impact, filed on behalf of class members serviced by the Brunswick County Northwest Water Treatment Plant (NWWTP). The first class potentially amounts to 100,000 or more members, and the other potentially amounts to 30,000 or more members.
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Now, in addition to those two class actions, national plaintiffs firm Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, which recently opened an office in Raleigh, along with litigation boutique Susman Godfrey, are heading the charge on another class action filed against DuPont and Chemours.
“This is an area of litigation that has been of great importance to our firm,” says former North Carolina Court of Appeals Judge Martha Geer of Cohen Milstein. Ted Leopold of Cohen Milstein, co-counsel for the plaintiff in the suit, is also co-lead counsel in a class action filed on behalf of residents of Flint, Michigan, against Gov. Rick Snyder, local government officials, the city of Flint and a group of engineering companies over contamination of the city’s water supply.
As in Flint, the litigation has been about toxins in drinking water that become part of plumbing systems and are very difficult, if not impossible, to eradicate, says Geer. Along with Cohen Milstein and Susman Godfrey, The Dedendum Group, out of Illinois, and Raleigh’s Whiteman Law Firm are representing the plaintiff and members in the class action.
Unlike other national plaintiffs firms, Cohen Milstein’s new Raleigh office plants the resources of its national bench in close proximity to the issues at hand.