Some more links
apta.org
bcnys.org
nfib.com
"When a West Virginia coal miner drilled through a thin wall and accidentally injured another worker, J.H. Fletcher, the firm that manufactured that drill, laced a huge lawsuit. The company, which didn't operate the drill, says it did install the required headlight to warn workers of its approach. To avoid a costly legal battle, the company settled the case for $25,000, about $50,000 less than what it would have cost to try the claim in court. Businesses of all sizes all across America face the threat of lawsuit everyday."
findarticles.com
bcnys.org
mnchamber.com
"Environmental law surge
The Superfund program, as well as a flood of other environmental statutes, has fueled a boom in the field of environmental law, a specialty almost unheard-of a decade and a half ago.
The latest legal directory put out by West Publishing listed almost 25,000 U.S. lawyers with practices that included environmental law. That represents almost 4 percent of all the lawyers in the nation.
The high legal fees associated with Superfund are generally acknowledged to be the result of the law's so-called "polluter pays" philosophy -- the backbone of the entire cleanup program.
Under the current funding scheme, companies are subject to a series of rigid legal doctrines that many caught in the Superfund net consider grossly unfair, sending most companies scrambling to the courthouse in an attempt to escape -- or at least reduce -- their liability under the law.
Those doctrines are known as strict, retroactive and joint and several liability.
Strict liability means that a private party can be held responsible for cleaning up a site even if there was no negligence at the time the waste disposal occurred and regardless of whether the disposal was legal, or even an accepted practice, at the time.
Retroactive liability requires that a private party assume cleanup responsibilities even if the disposal took place before the 1980 law was enacted. And under joint and several liability, a company can be forced to pay for cleanup activities at an entire Superfund site, even if it contributed only a small share of the contamination at the site. "
chron.com
townhall.com
townhall.com |
