Environmental Toxic Tort Actions Lurk In The UK

Whilst they still have some distance to go, claimants in an Erin Brockovich-style multi party toxic tort action based on remediation activities in Corby have overcome an important hurdle in their fight for compensation.

A "toxic tort" action is a special type of personal injury claim in which the claimant alleges that exposure to a toxic substance has led to some form of harm or disease.

Some toxic tort actions allege exposure of groups of individuals to a substance that has supposedly been introduced into the general environment by the defendant's actions. When environmental toxic tort actions like these happen in real life, the media usually follows them closely.

In the UK at least, it is extremely rare for environmental toxic tort actions to make it to trial, and rarer still for the claimants to actually win. Evidentially, claimants have a tough job, and the cost of putting a case together (if it is possible at all) is usually prohibitive.