Toxic torts & dangerous exposure

A toxic tort claim holds someone responsible for putting a person in contact with a substance that harmed them: a property owner who ignored a failing appliance, a building owner who left a known hazard in place, a company that released something it should have contained. The legal question is the familiar one, whether the responsible party knew or should have known of the danger and failed to act on it. What makes these cases different is the proof.

Exposure cases turn on evidence most people never see: inspection and maintenance records, service calls that were logged and ignored, air and material testing, and medical proof connecting a specific substance to a specific injury. That proof usually has to be assembled with engineers, industrial hygienists, and treating physicians, and much of it disappears if nobody preserves it early.

Initial consultation is free. Personal injury matters are handled on a contingency basis: you owe no attorney fee unless we recover for you.

Carbon monoxide has no color and no smell, and its early symptoms look like a headache, nausea, or ordinary fatigue. People are commonly poisoned in their sleep, in an apartment, a rented house, or a short-term rental, by a faulty furnace, water heater, generator, or blocked flue that the owner of the building was responsible for maintaining. Survivors can be left with lasting brain injury even when the exposure was brief.

These claims are built out of the building’s own records: the service history of the appliance, the inspection reports, whether working detectors were installed where the law and common sense required them, and what the owner or manager was told before anyone was hurt. The firm settled a carbon monoxide brain injury case for $7 million, and partner Samantha J. Funt has taught other trial lawyers how these cases are proved, at the GTLA LEAD Seminar and for the Cobb County Trial Lawyers Association.

Asbestos remains in older buildings across Georgia, and disturbing it during renovation or demolition can expose workers, residents, and passers-by to a risk whose consequences may not appear for decades. The same pattern holds for industrial chemicals, solvents, lead, mold, and contaminated water: someone knew the substance was there, and someone was responsible for keeping people away from it.

Because the injury can surface long after the exposure, these claims raise questions about deadlines that do not arise in an ordinary injury case. If you believe an exposure has made you ill, the timing of what you knew and when you knew it matters, so ask a lawyer sooner rather than later.

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