People, Bodies and Biospheres: Nexus and the Toxic Tort*

Kroll‐Smith, Steve; Westervelt, Saundra D.

doi:10.1111/j.0265-8240.2004.00008.x

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…Kroll‐Smith and Westervelt (2004) cite American cases that illustrate the ready permeability of the boundary between bodies and nature. They discuss mainly pollution by dangerous manufactured chemicals, but we might add chemicals used in food manufacture, chemicals such as fluoride that have been deliberately introduced to the human environment with a view to some beneficial effect, and natural toxins that adversely affect human health (Thornton 2000).…”

Section: The Body–environment Nexusmentioning

confidence: 99%

Toxic torts: arsenic poisoning in Bangladesh and the legal geographies of responsibility

Atkins¹,

Hassan

Dunn³

2006

Trans Inst British Geog

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Further information on publisher's website:http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j. 1475-5661.2006.00209.x Publisher's copyright statement:The denitive version is available at www.blackwell-synergy.com Additional information: Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details.

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Section: The Body–environment Nexusmentioning

confidence: 99%

Toxic torts: arsenic poisoning in Bangladesh and the legal geographies of responsibility

Atkins¹,

Hassan

Dunn³

2006

Trans Inst British Geog

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“…Plaintiffs’ property is another element closely examined by toxic torts, and one explored little by Atkins et al (2006). As Kroll‐Smith and Westervelt (2004) have suggested, toxic torts predominantly examine questions of both health and property. Exactly how property is represented in toxic torts and how it shapes the unravelling of proceedings have not yet been explored in legal geography.…”

Section: Legal Geography and Toxic Tort Litigationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Toxic torts as compensation: Legal geographies of environmental contamination litigation

Legg

Prior

2023

Geographical Research

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Residents living in close proximity to contaminated sites may experience adverse effects from financial losses and property devaluation, leading to poor mental health and physical illnesses—effects that may require compensation. The most common legal process of seeking compensation is the toxic tort—litigation pressed on the basis that contamination has harmed the victims. Several recent toxic tort class actions in Australia brought by residents living in areas affected by contamination from per‐ and poly‐fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) exemplify that process. Two such actions, those at Williamtown and Richmond, provide an opportunity to explore how toxic torts currently function as a means to secure compensation, whether they mitigate the harms of the contamination and considering how spatio‐legal manoeuvres may shape the litigation. In this article, we use a legal geography approach to analyse how plaintiffs’ bodies, litigants’ properties, and the state are constructed and represented by parties involved in these toxic torts. Legal geographers contend that examining the spatio‐legal manoeuvres made via litigation can make visible the effects of legal action on those involved and draw out how the law and its instruments may shape places and communities. Toxic tort class actions have allowed those affected by the contamination to be heard and receive some compensation. However, we argue that they do little to alleviate plaintiffs’ concerns about the effects of contamination on their health, properties, and the environment. The findings have significance given that torts will likely play an increasingly prominent role in dealing with such challenges.

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