Environmental Litigation

Schirrmeister Diaz-Arrastia Brem LLP has vast experience in representing Defendants in environmental and toxic tort litigation. Our lawyers have handled cases involving allegations of personal injury and property damage following exposure to benzene, asbestos, silica, vinyl chloride, naptha, propylene, ammonia, formaldehyde and "toxic soup" in state and federal trial courts throughout Texas and the United States. Our lawyers are well versed at challenging Plaintiffs' experts' methodology, and have extensive expertise in toxicology, epidemiology, risk assessment, industrial hygiene and other scientific areas necessary to defend these complex actions.

Andrew Schirrmeister acts as National Counsel for DuPont, coordinating its defense of benzene and trace benzene litigation cases in state and federal trial courts throughout Texas and the United States. He tried the first trace benzene case to a successful defense verdict in Fayetteville, Arkansas; this victory was the subject of a front page article in the December 2, 2002 National Law Journal.

Among the firm's many accomplishments are:

• Representing a Fortune 100 chemical company in a case involving a cluster of birth defects where allegations were brought that emissions from a Mexico border maquiladora caused a cluster of spina bifida and anencephaly among Texas children. At the same time that its co-defendants paid tens of million dollars to settle the case, our client and its joint venture partners were non-suited with no payment to the plaintiffs.
• Representing a Fortune 100 chemical company in a variety of occupational exposure matters involving workplace exposure to solvents, pesticides and cleaning agents, and other chemicals in cases involving allegations of organic brain syndrome dementia and cancer.
• Representing waste generators in a ground fill contamination case brought by residents surrounding a BFI-owned and operated land fill. Our clients received a summary judgment dismissing claims brought by over 1,000 plaintiffs.
• Representing a manufacturer in asbestos personal injury and property damage cases both in the class action context and individual personal injury claims alleging asbestosis, cancer, mesothelioma and pulmonary fibrosis.
• Representing large refineries and chemical plant owners/operators involving premises liability cases brought by third parties alleging exposure to asbestos and resulting diseases including asbestosis, cancer, mesothelioma, pulmonary fibrosis and other lung disorders.
• Representing a large Houston refinery in a nuisance action based on “noise” brought by neighbors surrounding the plant.
• Representing a Fortune 500 energy company with the nation’s fourth largest refinery in a nuisance action brought by neighboring residents.
• Representing various owners and operators of refineries and chemical plants in occupational exposure cases involving exposure to benzene, silica, vinyl chloride, naphtha, propylene, ammonia and formaldehyde.
• Representing a national manufacturer of mobile homes in cases involving exposure to formaldehyde.
• Representing a major sand manufacturer in cases brought by contractors alleging silicosis, pulmonary fibrosis and other lung disorders as a result of sand blasting operations.
• Representing a Houston-based real estate developer in the successful appeal (by trial de novo in Travis County District Court) of an order of the Texas Natural Resources Conservation Commission that it pay to clean up pollution at property the developer had acquired. The order of the Commission was dismissed and the client paid nothing.
• Representing a national purchaser of distressed assets in a suit to obtain contributions from prior owners of certain real property the client had acquired that had been polluted by the prior owners’ operations.
• Representing a national consulting engineering and testing firm in a fraud, breach of contract and deceptive trade practices action arising out of the firm’s environmental report regarding a parcel of real estate that contained environmental contamination.
• Representing a Houston-based developed of industrial properties in obtaining full rescission of its purchase of a contaminated parcel of land near the Houston Ship Channel. The full purchase price and all expenses incurred by the client during the years it held the property, including attorneys' fees were repaid to the client, and the seller assumed sole responsibility for government mandated remediation of the property.