Understanding toxic torts and Oklahoma’s laws.
What Is a Toxic Tort?
Today we’re going to talk about something called toxic torts. What is a toxic tort? Well toxic is pretty self-exclamatory. It’s something really, really, really bad. It’s something that tends to make you sick or possibly even languish and die. My name is Michael Ashworth. I’m the head of the Personal Injury Division for Wirth Law Office.
What is a tort? A tort is a wrong committed by one against another. That results in damages. The most classic type of tort would be negligence. Another classic tort would be intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Catastrophic Toxic Tort Damages
Today we’re going to talk about the concept of catastrophic toxic tort damages. I’m currently doing research on a matter and I was reading some articles. Toxic torts, the best example of that would be like Erin Brockovich. You have a water supply that is being compromised because of industrial waste.
There are practices throughout the United States in which industrial types of waste or biohazards are being used for various and sundry means. Sometimes for film. Sometimes they’re being used for fertilizer. But sometimes when handled improperly or if they leach into a water system or if they leach into the air sufficiently, they can do damage.
Examples of Toxic Torts
An example of leaching into the air sufficiently of a toxic tort would be what? The Canadian wildfires. If someone deliberately set those fires, they have committed a toxic tort because now you have particulate matter that is sweeping across into 20 states in the United States causing respiratory distress. Causing a form at times of pneumonia.
You may not have known this, but back in the Dust Bowl days when all the Okies were taking Route 66 to California for a new life, a new hope. There was something called dust pneumonia. The dust was so bad that people were asphyxiating because of the inhaling of the dust. So that’s an example of a toxic tort.
If you’re in a situation where you may be a rancher or farmer and someone has a pond or something leaching into your land that has toxic materials in there, they may dump waste into, that’s a situation of a toxic tort. And Oklahoma law has a law called nuisance to abate that nuisance. That means you file a lawsuit that gets that act declared a nuisance. That must be stopped. And the law imposes a certain amount of time to stop it by. Or if you don’t stop it, then the law is going to stop it.
Contact Us for a Free Consultation
Again, my name is Michael Ashworth. I’m the head of the Personal Injury Legal Section for Worth Law Office. Give us a call anytime you need at 918-924-5528. Or you can reach me online at TulsaPersonalInjuryLawyer.pro.
