The international law firm Greenberg Traurig, LLP announced that the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin issued an opinion and order on several pending motions in the case captioned Appleton Papers Inc. v. George A. Whiting Paper Co., No. 2:08-cv-16 (E.D. Wis.), including the granting of motions for summary judgment by Greenberg Traurig client Glatfelter, a global supplier of specialty paper and engineered products, and the other defendants.
"The judge adopted a creative case management order, segmenting the preparation and trial by issue. That allowed for a focused approach in this sprawling matter," said Greenberg Traurig environmental litigation shareholder David Mandelbaum.
The United States and the State of Wisconsin have been pursuing clean up of sediments containing polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in the bed of the Lower Fox River and Green Bay for more than two decades. The governments allege that most of those PCBs originated in carbonless copy paper, a product in which PCBs were used until 1971. The manufacturers of the paper filed this lawsuit (during the first quarter of 2008) against paper companies, including Glatfelter, and others, that recycled scrap from production of that paper, production of forms made from that paper, or the forms themselves, to allocate responsibility among them and to seek reimbursement. In the Court's Summary Judgment Order, the Court denied motions filed by the manufacturers for summary judgment and granted the defendants' motions for summary judgment.
The first phase of the case was scheduled to go to trial in January 2010, with more than $1 billion at issue, and was expected to last at least three months. Greenberg Traurig's Philadelphia-based environmental litigation team, led by Mandelbaum, also included shareholders Marc Davies and Monique Mooney and associates Caleb Holmes and Sabrina Mizrachi, Kate Legge and Mary Cate Gordon.
About Greenberg Traurig, LLP
Greenberg Traurig, LLP is an international, full-service law firm with approximately 1750 attorneys serving clients from more than 30 offices in the United States, Europe and Asia. In the U.S., the firm has more offices than any other among the Top 20 on The National Law Journal's 2008 NLJ 250. For additional information, please visit www.gtlaw.com.
Contacts:
Greenberg Traurig, LLP
Lourdes Brezo-Martinez, 305-579-0776
martinezl@gtlaw.com
