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Cases Move Forward in that Other Southeast U.S. Environmental Catastrophe ? Chinese Drywall

By Joe Consumer

The last time we covered the Chinese Drywall ?hot mess," the Deepwater Horizon oilrig occupied nary a nanosecond of brain power for most people.  Of course, now our collective brains are hurting pretty badly over that.  Incredibly, what is happening in the Gulf is just the latest environmental calamity to hit the southeast recently? and I?m not even talking about hurricanes. 

We like to talk about Chinese Drywall because it highlights so very well the important role that civil courts and good trial lawyers play in getting not-so-easy-to-come-by justice for people.

Bloomberg reports that so far, over 2,100 people are plaintiffs in coordinated nationwide federal drywall litigation and the New Orleans judge overseeing it said that USG (?North America?s largest maker of gypsum wallboard?) and Germany?s Knauf Group "are among about 1,000 defendants? that may face claims.  That should help residents in their quest for justice and compensation.  He also said that ?as many as 40,000 plaintiffs may bring claims,? which gives one a sense of the breadth of this problem.

And in Florida, a drywall case received the first-ever class action status.  It?s a smaller case, involving ?152 families from three Homestead neighborhoods,? but a very important one.  A Miami New Times blogger put it quite well:

For the first time in the nation, a Miami judge this morning certified a class action lawsuit against distributors and manufacturers of the toxic drywall.

The class action suit is limited to a single subdivision in Homestead, but lawyers say the judge's decision could be an important precedent for thousands of other victims.

"Now that we've established the precedent that there is a defective product with a common source, we can start to expand on the victory," says Victor Diaz, the lawyer representing the Homestead couple who brought the lawsuit.

?

Diaz also sits on the steering committee of the large federal case seeking a class action suit, which sits in New Orleans' federal court. He says the Miami ruling -- issued by Circuit Court Judge Joseph Ferina -- could help the federal judge in Louisiana authorize a nationwide class-action.

"This was all about testing whether these cases could be brought on as a class-action and we won a big victory today," he says.

Hang in there, southeast!

Full post as published by ThePopTort on May 28, 2010 (boomark / email).