Robert Bilott

Robert Bilott (born August 2, 1965) is an American environmental attorney from Cincinnati, Ohio. Bilott is known for the lawsuits against DuPont on behalf of plaintiffs from West Virginia. Bilott has spent more than twenty years litigating hazardous dumping of the chemicals Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and Perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS).

Robert Bilott
Born (1965-08-02) August 2, 1965
Ohio, U.S.
Alma materNew College of Florida (BA)
Ohio State University (JD)
OccupationEnvironmental lawyer
Known forClass action lawsuit against DuPont on behalf of plaintiffs from Parkersburg, West Virginia
Spouse(s)Sarah Barlage
Children3

Early life

Bilott was born on August 2, 1965.[1] Bilott's father served in the United States Air Force, and Bilott spent his childhood on several air force bases. Because the family moved frequently, Bilott attended eight different schools before graduating from Fairborn High School in Fairborn, Ohio. He then earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and urban studies from the New College of Florida. He then earned a Juris Doctor from the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law in 1990.[2][3]

Career

Bilott was admitted to the Bar in 1990[3] and began his law practice at Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP in Cincinnati, Ohio[4] For eight years he worked almost exclusively for large corporate clients and his specialty was defending chemical companies.[5] He became a partner at the firm in 1998.[1]

Bilott represented Wilbur Tennant of Parkersburg, West Virginia whose cattle were dying.[1] The farm was downstream from a landfill where DuPont had been dumping hundreds of tons of Perfluorooctanoic acid. In the summer of 1999, Bilott filed a federal suit against DuPont in the United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia. In response, DuPont advised that DuPont and the United States Environmental Protection Agency would commission a study of the farmer's property, conducted by three veterinarians chosen by DuPont and three chosen by the Environmental Protection Agency. When the report was released, it blamed the Tennants for the dying cattle claiming that poor husbandry was responsible: ‘‘poor nutrition, inadequate veterinary care and lack of fly control.’’[5]

After Bilott discovered that thousands of tons of DuPont's PFOA had been dumped into the landfill next to the Tennants' property and that DuPont's PFOA was contaminating the surrounding community's water supply, DuPont settled the Tennants' case. In August 2001, Bilott filed a class action lawsuit against DuPont on behalf of the approximately 70,000 people in West Virginia and Ohio with PFOA-contaminated drinking water, which was settled in September 2004, with class benefits valued at over $300 million, including DuPont agreeing to install filtration plants in the six affected water districts and dozens of impacted private wells, a cash award of $70 million, and provisions for future medical monitoring to be paid by DuPont up to $235 million, if an independent science panel confirmed "probable links" between PFOA in the drinking water and human disease.[1] After the independent scientific panel jointly selected by the parties (but required under the settlement to be paid for by DuPont) found that there was a probable link between drinking PFOA and kidney cancer, testicular cancer, thyroid disease, high cholesterol, pre-eclampsia, and ulcerative colitis, Bilott began opening individual personal-injury lawsuits against DuPont on behalf of affected users of the Ohio and West Virginia water supplies, which by 2015 numbered over 3,500. After winning the first three for $19.7 million, in 2017 DuPont agreed to settle the remainder of the then-pending cases for $671.7 million. [1][6] Dozens more cases have been filed since the 2017 settlement.

In 2018, Bilott filed a new case seeking new studies and testing of the larger group of PFAS chemicals on behalf of a proposed nationwide class of everyone in the United States who has PFAS chemicals in their blood, against several PFAS manufacturers, including 3M, DuPont, and Chemours.[7] This new litigation is ongoing as of May 2020.[8]

In 2016, Bilott's story was the focus of a featured cover story by Nathaniel Rich in the New York Times Magazine, entitled, "The Lawyer Who Became DuPont's Worst Nightmare." Bilott's work was also featured in extensive articles in The Huffington Post (Welcome to Beautiful Parkersburg) and The Intercept (multi-part The Teflon Toxin series).

Robert Bilott is the author of the acclaimed memoir Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyer’s Twenty-Year Battle Against DuPont, published in 2019 by Atria Books.[9] The audio book version (also available through Atria Books) is narrated by Jeremy Bobb with the first chapter narrated by Mark Ruffalo. Bilott's story also became the basis for Dark Waters, a 2019 film starring Mark Ruffalo as Bilott, and Anne Hathaway as Bilott's wife, Sarah Barlage. The story is also featured in the feature-length documentary; The Devil We Know; was the subject of the poem, Watershed by U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith; is the subject of the "Toxic Waters" episode of the multi-part feature documentary, "Parched," which aired on the National Geographic TV channel in 2017; and is the subject for the song and video Deep in the Water by The Gary Douglas Band.

In 2017, Bilott received the international Right Livelihood Award, also known as the "Alternative Nobel Prize," for his decades of work on PFAS chemical contamination issues, and was featured on a stamp issued in Austria, commemorating the award.

Awards and Recognition
  • 2005 Trial Lawyer of the Year. Presented by The Trial Lawyers For Public Justice Foundation.[3]
  • 2006 Super Lawyer Rising Star. Selected by Cincinnati Magazine.[3]
  • 2008 100 Top Trial Lawyers from Ohio. Named by American Trial Lawyers Association.[3]
  • 2008 - Present Leading Lawyer Honoree. Name by Cincy Magazine Environmental Law.
  • 2010 - Present Honoree, Environmental Law, Litigation. Named by Best Lawyers in America.
  • 2011-Present Top Local Plaintiff Litigation Star Honoree. Presented by Benchmark Plaintiff.
  • 2014 Clarence Darrow Award Honoree. Presented by Mass Tort Bar.
  • 2016 Giraffe Hero Commendation Honoree. Presented by Giraffe Heroes Project.
  • 2016 Joined the board of the Next Generation Choices Foundation (a.k.a. Less Cancer) "to support its mission in championing education and policy that will help prevent cancer."[10]
  • 2017 - Present Class Action Honoree. Presented by Kentucky Super Lawyers.
  • 2017 Right Livelihood Award. Presented by The Right Livelihood Foundation (December 1, 2017)[1][11]
  • 2017 MVP for Class Action Honoree. Named by Law360
  • 2019 Lawyer of the Year in Litigation - Environmental. Named by Best Lawyer.[12]
  • 2020 Public Interest Environmental Law David Brower Lifetime Achievement Award[13]
  • 2020 Kentucky Bar Association Distinguished Lawyer Award[14]
  • 2020 Big Fish Award. Presented by Riverkeeper Fishermen's Ball.

Personal life

In 1996, Bilott married Sarah Barlage. They have three children.[2]

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See also

References
  1. "Robert Bilott". The Right Livelihood Award. Retrieved 2019-12-07.
  2. Rich, Nathaniel (6 April 2016). "The Lawyer Who Became DuPont's Worst Nightmare". New York Times. Retrieved 7 December 2019.
  3. "Robert Bilott". thenationaltriallawyers.org. Retrieved December 9, 2019.
  4. "Robert A. Bilott | People | Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP". www.taftlaw.com.
  5. The Lawyer Who became Dupont's worst nightmare, New York Times, 6 January 2016
  6. "The Real Rob Bilott of 'Dark Waters' is Only Getting Started". Time. Retrieved 2020-05-11.
  7. Lerner, Sharon (October 6, 2018). "Nationwide Class Action Lawsuit Targets DuPont, Chemours, 3M, and Other Makers of PFAS Chemicals". The Intercept. Retrieved December 6, 2019.
  8. Schlanger, Zoe (May 29, 2019). "DuPont and 3M knowingly contaminated drinking water across the US, lawsuits allege". Quartz. Retrieved December 6, 2019.
  9. Rivlin, Gary (October 14, 2019). "For 'Erin Brockovich' Fans, a David vs. Goliath Tale With a Twist" – via NYTimes.com.
  10. "Bilott Joins Less Cancer Board". TaftLaw.com. Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP. Retrieved 16 December 2019.
  11. "Alternative Nobel Prize awarded to four activists". September 26, 2017. Retrieved December 8, 2019.
  12. "Robert A. Bilott". bestlawyers.com. Retrieved December 9, 2019.
  13. "David Brower Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient Robert Bilott | PIELC". pielc.org. Retrieved 2020-05-20.
  14. "Taft attorney who inspired Mark Ruffalo film wins prestigious award". www.bizjournals.com. Retrieved 2020-05-20.
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