Environmental injury lawyers represent clients who have been harmed because of a company’s policies and actions that pollute the environment. A lawyer of this type can help trace the medical conditions to its proper cause, which may be the commercial products or waste materials that a company has disposed improperly.
Environmental injury lawyers today are more well-known because of the Julia Roberts movie Erin Brockovich. It’s a retelling of an actual case, in which the real Erin Brockovich was a legal clerk who helped build a case against the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) of California in 1993.
The case involved allegations that PG&E disposed of waste materials that resulted in the contamination of the drinking water in Hinkley, California. The lawsuit ended in a $333 million settlement, which is the largest settlement in U.S. history that was ever paid in a direct-action lawsuit.
Other Types of Environmental Injury Cases in San Diego
The truth of the matter is that there are many ways in which negligent companies can harm the environment and the people in and around their facilities. They can pollute the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the soil from which our food comes from.
Some of these cases may involve the use of toxic materials for products and services. Buildings and other structures may contain asbestos, which can then cause cancer. Farms may use pesticides that can contaminate the soil and the waterways.
The real Erin Brockovich herself was involved in many different types of environmental injury cases:
- In 2003, she was involved in a toxic mold lawsuit, as she herself went through problems with mold contamination in her own house in California.
- She participated in a case involving allegations that 300 cases of cancer were linked to oil wells in a school campus, which the school allowed a contractor to operate.
- In 2009, she helped file a case against a tanning company in Missouri, with allegations that the company distributed waste sludge that contained toxic materials to farmers in the area to use as fertilizer. The EPA is currently investigating this allegations link to the unusually high number of brain tumor cases in a nearby town.
- The same chromium material involved in the Hinkley case is involved in a town in Texas that Brockovich started to investigate in 2009. The chromium was detected in the water for more than 40 homes in the area.
- In 2016, she participated in a case that involved a large methane leak from an underground storage facility of a company.
Finding the Environmental Injury Right Lawyer
As you can see, you can find a lawyer that specializes in environmental injury cases. At Ozols Law Firm, our environmental injury lawyers can help represent you or your loved ones, and ensure that you recover damages to help with medical costs and other expenses. Many of the cases we have handled over the years involve medical conditions that can appear only after 20 or 30 years, but we will work tirelessly to ensure that your case is properly investigated and that the party at fault is held accountable.
We highly encourage you to fill out our online form so one of our experienced environmental injury lawyers can review your case.