Municipal Governments Have a Duty to Sue in Large Tort Cases

Governmental lawsuits spark an uncomfortable question. Should public entities be in the business of litigation? The better question might be whether they can afford not to be.

Across the country, municipalities, school districts, and county agencies are joining mass tort litigation to recover costs imposed on their communities by corporate wrongdoing.

Yet local leaders may hesitate about optics, political blowback, or the assumption that someone else will handle it.

That hesitation comes at a cost measured in contaminated water systems left unremedied, public health crises left unfunded, and recovery dollars that never reach the communities that need them most.

Local leaders must recognize that when municipalities sit out of litigation, states frequently capture the recovery and allocate those funds according to their own priorities. Local governments with fewer resources could benefit from settlements and verdicts and support infrastructure improvements, reduce tax burdens, or restore depleted budgets.

Governmental entities bear unique damages that individuals can’t recover on their own. When PFAS (perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances) chemicals contaminate a water supply, it’s the municipality that pays for treatment upgrades and ongoing monitoring costs that can stretch into the tens of millions of dollars.

When pharmaceutical companies raise insulin prices, county health plans and public employers absorb those costs year after year. When social media platforms fuel a youth mental health crisis, public school districts hire additional counselors and manage the fallout in classrooms. These institutional harms demand institutional remedies.

Critics have argued that litigation distracts from core governmental functions. In practice, the opposite is true. Experienced attorneys handle the bulk of legal work, requiring minimal time investment from governmental staff. Litigation runs parallel to governance, not in place of it.

Others suggest these lawsuits are politically motivated, but courtrooms care about evidence, not ideology. The National Prescription Opiate Litigation included plaintiffs from major metropolitan areas and rural counties alike, spanning across the country to every political affiliation. Devastation, not partnership, was the common thread.

The same holds true for water contamination, insulin pricing, and every other mass tort where corporations have externalized their costs onto communities. The law provides a nonpolitical lens through which to evaluate harm and demand accountability.

Perhaps the most persistent misconception is that governmental litigation wastes taxpayer dollars. Consider the alternative: perpetual cleanup costs with no recovery, ballooning health-care expenditures absorbed entirely by public budgets, or expanded regulatory bureaucracies that create ongoing expenses.

When companies contaminated local water systems with aqueous film-forming foam, litigation helped municipalities recover billions for decades of water treatment costs. As the plaintiffs’ legal team, we successfully secured settlements of $12.5 billion with 3M Co., $1.185 billion with DuPont, Chemours Co., and Corteva Inc., $750 million with Tyco Fire Products, and $316.5 million with the BASF Corp.

Mass tort litigation operates on contingency, and recovery flows back to communities. The BASF settlement alone has helped municipalities recoup decades of water treatment expenses. Similarly, the ongoing Insulin Pricing Litigation allows governmental entities to recoup inflated costs and redirect those savings to community programs.

Today’s decisions will shape tomorrow’s budgets, infrastructure, and community health. Leaders who decline to pursue legitimate legal remedies leave money on the table that could repair water systems, fund public health initiatives, or ease the tax burden on residents. Worse, they cede control to state governments that may have different priorities for how resolution funds are spent.

Municipal leaders should take proactive steps to protect their communities. Stay informed about emerging mass tort litigations that may affect their residents, consult with attorneys experienced in governmental claims to assess your municipality’s exposure, and connect with peer governments to understand how others are approaching similar harms.

For officials committed to fiscal responsibility and constituent welfare, the answer is clear. Good governance demands pursuing every legitimate avenue to protect taxpayers and recover costs that communities should never have borne in the first place.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg Industry Group, Inc., the publisher of Bloomberg Law, Bloomberg Tax, and Bloomberg Government, or its owners.

Author Information

Paul J. Napoli is a founding partner of Napoli Shkolnik with more than 30 years of legal experience in governmental affairs, environmental law and mass tort litigation.

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