Kelley Drye

We represent companies facing claims and class actions relating to consumer protection, negligence, strict liability, and breach of warranty, among others. Our litigators have served as trial counsel on some of the most high-profile cases in history, which have involved PCBs, Agent Orange, latex gloves, breast implants, national asbestos litigation, and the Bhopal, India gas disaster. Because we built our practice while mass torts came of age, Kelley Drye has developed the experience and resources needed to skillfully and cost-effectively defend today's complex cases.

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Representative Experience

• Kelley Drye represents BP Products North America as a co-defendant in 17 New York State Supreme Court cases and one Federal Court class action brought against ExxonMobil and BP by residents of Greenpoint, Brooklyn alleging that their properties were impacted from millions of gallons of spills from a former Mobil refinery which operated until 1964. BP purchased a ten acre parcel of the former Mobil refinery in 1968 and has used the property as a fuel terminal. The plaintiffs claim personal injuries and property damage due to the migration of oil from the former Mobil refinery and due to vapor intrusion. BP has been conducting remedial operations since 1981. The case is ongoing.
  
  
• Kelley Drye represented Union Carbide Corporation, now wholly owned by The Dow Chemical Company, in all aspects of its defense of the Bhopal gas disaster litigation including consolidating 147 multi-billion dollar U.S. class actions suits brought in the U.S. on behalf of over 500,000 claimants; dismissal of all of those suits to India; defending and ultimately settling all the civil litigation in India; and conducting an extensive multi-year investigation in a hostile environment which ultimately determined the cause of the disaster. In separate but related litigation, we won dismissal of claims regarding injuries allegedly caused by ground water, claims for environmental remediation, and claims for alleged violations of international law brought under the Alien Tort Statute.
  
  
• Kelley Drye has represented a major chemical company since 1979 in the precedent-setting Agent Orange litigation, which involved alleged injuries from exposure to a defoliant used by the U.S. military in the Vietnam war. In the most recent cases, the manufacturers of Agent Orange won two significant victories in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. First, the Court affirmed summary judgment in favor of the manufacturers, dismissing U.S. veterans' claims, based on the government contractor defense. Second, the Court affirmed dismissal, for failure to state a claim, of an action brought by Vietnamese citizens under the Alien Tort Statute, alleging that the use of Agent Orange was a war crime.
  
  
• We represented a major chemical company in landmark mass tort litigation arising from alleged chemical exposure in the semiconductor industry workplace. In those cases, roughly 200 plaintiffs alleged various injuries, including birth defects and different types of cancers, allegedly caused by exposure to a wide variety of industrial chemicals in the workplace, including ethylene glycol ethers, acetone, benzene, n-butyl acetate and other chemicals.
  
  
• We represented Honeywell International Inc. in successfully defending against an action brought in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, by former and current hospital employees whose cases were consolidated for trial. The employees claimed they had been exposed to a toxic chemical, ethylene oxide, the active ingredient in a gas mixture used to sterilize heat sensitive medical instruments. The complaint alleged negligence, product liability and conspiracy, all related to plaintiffs' allegations of various neurological injuries from exposure to this gas.
  
  
• We served Johnson & Johnson as National Coordinating Counsel in the latex glove multi-district litigation. We coordinated the defense in over 470 cases pending in 25 separate jurisdictions. This effort involves direct oversight of 35 firms serving as local counsel, as well as working closely with multiple co-defendants in each jurisdiction. We also serve as liaison counsel for the entire defense group in both the New York and Illinois coordinated state proceedings. Further, we tried the first case, (Steffen v. Johnson & Johnson Medical), in Dallas to a defense verdict against the firm Baron & Budd.
  
  
• As national counsel for Robertshaw Controls Corp., Kelley Drye coordinated the defense of cases involving 98 deaths and hundreds of serious burn injuries in litigation alleging defectively designed hot water heater controls involving claims of substantial compensatory and punitive damages. All cases were resolved with insurance funding.
  
  
• We have advised Otis Elevator Company in coordinating its nationwide defense of product liability cases.
  
  
• Kelley Drye successfully defended Sandoz, Inc., a major pharmaceutical manufacturer and distributor, in a personal injury action involving claims of negligence, breach of warranty and strict product liability arising from a severe adverse reaction to an intravenous prescription pharmaceutical knows as cefazolin sodium. Kelley Drye was able to settle the action for "nuisance value" immediately before depositions were to commence.
  
  
• Kelley Drye represents Laboratory Corporation of America in a series of severe personal injury/wrongful death actions involving claims of negligence and medical malpractice with respect to the alleged misdiagnosis of various acute and chronic medical conditions.

Contact Information

Christopher C. Palermo
Partner
Email
New York
Phone: (212) 808-7789
Fax: (212) 808-7897