The Scarlet Letter Of Self-Stigmatized Property

Law360, New York (October 23, 2014, 10:29 AM EDT) -- Communities with ongoing environmental remediation often have two diametric dynamics. The first is community activism, often with citizen groups to galvanize and publicize opinion on perceived — and often exaggerated — dangers of contamination. Seemingly as often as night follows day, lawsuits claiming properties are stigmatized by contamination will soon follow. The second is the central tenet of tort law that defendants may only be held to answer for injuries they caused and not for the plaintiff's contribution to them. Hence the tension: How is the law to treat the property damage of plaintiffs who stigmatize their own property through public and vocal claims of harmful contamination?...

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