Fire Law Blog Fire Service and Public Safety Legal Issues Blog by Curt Varone
The City of San Diego has filed suit against twenty-four chemical companies responsible for manufacturing, distributing, supplying, and/or selling aqueous film forming foam (AFFF). The city is seeking to recoup the costs of remediating the presence of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from its municipal water and natural resources.
The named defendants are 3M Co., Buckeye Fire Equipment Co., Carrier Global Corp., Kidde-Fenwal, Inc., Kidde PLC, Inc., Raytheon Technologies Corp., UTC Fire & Security Americas Corp., Chemguard, Inc., National Foam, Inc., Tyco Fire Products LP, AGC Chemicals Americas, Inc., Archroma U.S., Inc., Arkema, Inc., BASF Corp., Chemdesign Products, Inc., Chemicals Incorporated, The Chemours Co., The Chemours Co. FC, LLC, Clariant Corp., Corteva, Inc., DuPont De Nemours, Inc., E.I. Du Pont De Nemours And Co., Deepwater Chemicals, Inc., and Dynax Corp. The suit was filed in state court and alleges lists six state-law based counts:
- Public Nuisance – Abatement
- Public Nuisance – Damages
- Defective Design
- Failure To Warn
- Trespass
- Negligence
Here is a copy of the complaint:
Due to the large number of suits of this nature, the federal court system has directed all federal lawsuits involving AFFF and PFAS to the US District Court for the District of South Carolina. We will see if the defendants try get the state law complaint removed to federal court, and them moved to South Carolina.
