Environmental Cost Recovery Actions

Ice Miller has experience in the defense and prosecution of lawsuits seeking contribution from liable parties for the costs associated with investigating and remediating contaminated property. Ice Miller's environmental litigators have brought and defended such actions on behalf of public and private entities under various state and federal statutes and the common law.

Recent examples include:

• Pursuit of lawsuits on behalf of municipalities faced with massive environmental cleanups against the companies who polluted and abandoned properties within those municipalities. These actions included claims against the polluter's insurers to establish coverage.
• Representation of a plastics manufacturer sued for alleged releases of solvents from an aboveground storage tank.
• Defense of a major oil company in multiple lawsuits arising out of the company's current or former ownership or operation of abandoned underground storage tanks and oil pipelines.
• Represented a landowner of a former restaurant who discovered contamination on its property from underground storage tanks that were improperly removed in a contribution action against prior owners or operators.
• Represented a real estate developer who incurred response costs to remediate petroleum contamination from underground storage tanks in an action against former owners and operators in the chain of title.