March 9, 2021 @ 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm
Litigation Webinar-What every municipal lawyer should know about recovering damages for legacy environmental contamination of municipal resources.
Speaker: Kyle McGee, Suzanne Sangree, Viola Vetter, & Jason Wilson
Municipalities have long shouldered the burden of managing PCBs, PFAS, MBTE, TCP, Chromium and other contaminants in their drinking water, wastewater and stormwater systems, often spending millions of dollars per year. This webinar provides an affirmative litigation framework for local governments to recover damages from the manufacturers, distributors and dischargers of the contaminants, shifting the financial burden away from taxpayers and ratepayers and onto the companies that profited from the sale and uncontrolled use of hazardous chemical products. The webinar will provide a brief historical overview of the development of the law of environmental recoveries: CERCLA, the Clean Water Act (and state equivalents), as well as state law claims under products liability, consumer protection, public nuisance, and trespass. It will provide an update on the proposed $550 million national class PCB settlement with Monsanto, and an overview of municipalities’ additional options to recover from dischargers the costs of PCB management, reduction, and remediation. The webinar will give an overview of the tightening regulations for PFAS in municipal water systems, and litigation options for shifting the future huge costs of PFAS remediation. Municipal law departments can bring in significant revenues through affirmative environmental litigation.
Speaker: Kyle McGee, Suzanne Sangree, Viola Vetter, & Jason Wilson
Kyle McGee is a director at Grant & Eisenhofer. Mr. McGee is the head of G&E’s Environmental Litigation Group, focusing on sovereign and public entity representation. Mr. McGee also regularly represents state and municipal clients in consumer protection matters, as well as relators or whistleblowers in qui tam litigation. Mr. McGee currently serves as special counsel to several state Attorneys General and municipalities in actions against Monsanto Co. arising out of that company’s production, marketing, and sale of toxic PCBs, which now contaminate natural resources throughout the nation, and against 3M Co., DuPont, Chemours, and other manufacturers of toxic PFAS chemicals and products containing PFAS, which now contaminate groundwater, drinking water, and other public resources. Mr. McGee also represents state agencies in hazardous site litigation arising out of historic disposal practices and emissions of contaminants such as lead and arsenic. Mr. McGee was named to the Environmental Trial Lawyers Association Top 10 for Delaware, and serves on the Executive Committee for the ETLA. In addition to environmental litigation, Mr. McGee partners with state Attorneys General and municipalities, including public employee health plans, pursuing consumer protection actions against pharmaceutical manufacturers and others in the healthcare industry, primarily concerning the marketing and sale of dangerous products, such as Zantac/ranitidine. Mr. McGee also represents numerous relators in confidential whistleblower actions under the federal and various state False Claims Acts, pursuing misconduct in diverse fields including medical and mental healthcare, residential mortgage lending, defense contracting, retail, and finance, as well as the whistleblower programs managed by the Securities & Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Suzanne Sangree is senior counsel at Grant & Eisenhofer, focusing her practice on the representation of local governments in complex litigation matters stemming from environmental damage, antitrust violations, mass torts, patent manipulation, and securities fraud. Prior to joining Grant & Eisenhofer, Ms. Sangree worked for the City of Baltimore Department of Law for 13 years. She served as the Director of Affirmative Litigation, pursuing environmental, False Claims Act, antitrust, products liability, and consumer-related cases, among other types of litigation. She also held roles as Senior Public Safety Counsel/Chief, Legal Affairs Division; and Chief Solicitor & Director of Training. She additionally served as a member of the Settlement Committee and Executive Committee for the Department of Law. In 2020, Bloomberg Law recognized Ms. Sangree as a Key Player in 2020 Environmental Litigation. An accomplished speaker, Ms. Sangree spoke on “Climate Damages Tort Litigation” at the environmental law annual conference at Yale Law School and Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies in 2020, among several other engagements. In 2015 the International Municipal Lawyers Association awarded Ms. Sangree its distinguished public service award, and she was named a Top 40 Maryland Lawyer in 2014. Ms. Sangree is the former Chair, Delivery of Legal Services Section Council of the Maryland State Bar Association, and presently serves as a board member for Selective Service Commission, Region I Local Board. Ms. Sangree earned her LL.M. from Harvard Law School and her J.D. from City University of New York Law School at Queens. She received her B.A., cum laude, from Wesleyan University.
Viola Vetter is senior counsel at Grant & Eisenhofer where she focuses on sovereign and public entity representation, primarily in matters seeking to redress environmental contamination. Ms. Vetter currently represents several state Attorneys General and municipalities in environmental litigation. In that role, she is prosecuting claims against Monsanto Co. arising out of that company’s production, marketing, and sale of toxic PCBs, which now contaminate natural resources throughout the nation, and against 3M Co., DuPont, Chemours, and other manufacturers of toxic PFAS chemicals and PFAS-laced products, which now contaminate groundwater, drinking water, and other public resources. Ms. Vetter is also involved in a number of site-specific investigations and litigations concerning the historic disposal and emissions of environmental contaminants. Ms. Vetter also represents investors in corporate governance and securities litigation, including in cross-border disputes. Prior to joining Grant & Eisenhofer, Ms. Vetter was an associate at an international law firm, resident in Philadelphia, representing corporate clients in complex commercial, consumer and qui tam matters in state and federal courts. Ms. Vetter earned her J.D. from Temple University Beasley School of Law in 2007, where she was a member of the Temple Political & Civil Rights Law Review. She received her B.S. in International Business and Political Philosophy, magna cum laude, from Elizabethtown College in 2004. Ms. Vetter was selected to the 2015-2016 Pennsylvania Super Lawyers Rising Stars list for Business Litigation. She is fluent in English and German.
Jason Wilson is an associate at Grant & Eisenhofer where he focuses on sovereign and public entity representation, primarily in matters to address the systemic environmental contamination of public resources. Currently, Mr. Wilson is prosecuting claims against Monsanto Co. arising out of that company’s production, marketing, and sale of toxic PCBs, which now contaminate natural resources and municipal stormwater systems throughout the nation, and against 3M Co. and other manufacturers of toxic PFAS chemicals, which contaminate groundwater, drinking water, and other public resources. Mr. Wilson also represents investors and whistleblowers in corporate governance and securities litigation. Prior to joining Grant & Eisenhofer, Mr. Wilson was an associate at an international law firm, resident in Philadelphia, defending shareholder disputes, consumer class actions, antitrust, bankruptcy, environmental litigation, and government investigations related to the False Claims Act, Anti-Kickback Act and Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Regarding his experience in shareholder disputes, Mr. Wilson defended numerous securities class actions, derivative suits and various shareholder requests for books and records. Before that, he spent three years in the litigation department of a large New York law firm. Mr. Wilson also served as a law clerk to Judge William H. Walls of the US District Court for the District of New Jersey. Mr. Wilson earned his J.D. from Columbia Law School in 2004 where he was a Harlan Fisk Stone Scholar, was awarded the Alfred S. Forsyth Prize for dedication to the advancement of environmental law, and served as Editor-in-Chief of the Columbia Environmental Law Journal. He received his B.A. in History and a concentration in Environmental Science from Williams College in 1999.