Dow Chemical faces more than 40 lawsuits related to dioxin contamination of property downriver from its Midland facility. Today , the Michigan Court of Appeals said those trials can go forward.
The appeals court rejected Dow’s attempt to have the lawsuits thrown out. This ruling deals with one of 43 lawsuits that are part of litigation going back more than a decade. But the precedent can be applied to the rest of the cases.
The chemical company said the lawsuits were filed too late, and the plaintiffs failed to show a specific harm to them. But the court said the family met the three year window after 2002, when the state warned people living along the Tittabawassee downriver from Dow that dioxin was in the soil of the floodplain and they should keep their children away. The families say that also made it much harder to sell their homes, and reduced their property values.