Susan's experience includes:

• For more than six years, representing McLaren Health Care Corporation in highly contentious, complex litigation and related disputes involving sophisticated Safe Drinking Water Act issues. The litigation is comprised of tens of thousands of environmental class action and individual personal injury and property damage claims originating from changes the City of Flint, Michigan made to its municipal drinking water system in 2014. In Re Flint Water Cases, 499 F. Supp. 3d 399 (E.D. Mich. 2021).
• Leading the civil defense for the City of Los Angeles against potential violations of the Clean Water Act and related state laws after the City’s Hyperion wastewater treatment plant discharged millions of gallons of untreated sewage due to a plant upset and a plant-wide flooding incident in July 2021. Both state and federal agencies are investigating this matter with enforcement claims that could include large penalties and injunctive relief. Enforcement investigations are ongoing.
• In a PCE groundwater contamination litigation matter in the City of Modesto, developing science-based defenses with expert witnesses and advising on issues pertaining to the California Safe Drinking Water Act.
• Representing a property management company and related entities in complex litigation in which more than 50 current or former tenants of privatized military base housing in Washington state sued alleging impacts from mold exposure.
• Advising a pipeline client facing a multi-agency investigation of a spill/release incident in California and a related discharge into the waters of the state.
• Representing multiple clients in matters before the South Coast Air Quality Management District, including investigations and variance hearings.
• Representing a semiconductor industry client regarding compliance with California state and local environmental health and safety regulations and preparation for an annual inspection by the Office of the State Fire Marshal.
• Obtaining a defense verdict in an environmental contamination case involving medical, scientific, and real estate issues, with damages upward of $3 million.
• Obtaining a summary judgment order in favor of a defendant being sued on the basis that the plaintiff had allegedly contracted Legionnaires' disease due to negligent management of an apartment building.
• Favorably settling a product liability case involving mold and formaldehyde exposure in a recreational vehicle.
• Winning dismissal of claims against a commercial food establishment in a case involving 23 plaintiffs and their exposure to carbon monoxide, which resulted in permanent brain damage.
• Defending a distributor of industrial safety supplies in a 25-plaintiff case alleging silica and asbestos exposure.
• Defending a national bank in a bystander exposure asbestos case, resulting in favorable resolution.
• Favorably resolving multiple wrongful death and personal injury claims against a property manager stemming from a Legionnaires' disease outbreak at a senior housing project.