Melissa LaFreniere  |  March 7, 2016

Category: Consumer News

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drinking water pouring from faucet

UPDATE: November 2020, a $641 million settlement has been reached to benefit Michigan residents affected by the Flint water crisis.


Seven families have joined together to file a class action lawsuit that accuses state and city officials of recklessly exposing the entire Flint, Mich. community to toxic drinking water.

The class action lawsuit claims that since 2014 government officials knew that Flint’s water supply contained dangerous levels of lead but they downplayed the severity of the situation at the expense of its residents.

Plaintiff Tiesha Tipton, mother of four young children, says she was continuously led to believe that there was nothing wrong with the city water and so she regularly used it for drinking, bathing, cooking and cleaning. As a result, Tipton claims that all four of her kids now have heightening levels of lead in their blood system.

Tipton, along with the other Flint families named in the water contamination class action, say that because of the lead exposure they now have a “justifiable and actual fear of developing cancer.”

According to the Flint lawsuit, the Centers for Disease Control has noted that: “No safe blood level in children has been identified. Even low levels in blood have been shown to affect IQ, ability to pay attention, and academic achievement.”

The plaintiffs believe that there is a “reasonable probability” of developing cancer as lead impacts nearly every organ and system in the human body.

The water contamination class action states that the plaintiffs, as well as future Class Members, have suffered and will continue to suffer from physical, psychological, financial and emotional injuries as a result of the drinking water crisis.

According to the complaint, numerous defendants including – Michigan Governor Richard Snyder, Chief of the Office of Drinking Water and Municipal Assistance for the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality Liane S. Smith, and Water Quality Analyst for the MDEQ Adam Rosenthal (among others) – have violated the Safe Drinking Water Act by failing to inform residents of the results of tap water samples within 30 days.

“Despite the mounting evidence of a severe lead contamination problem as a result of the lack of corrosion control measures, Defendants continued to tell residents that Flint’s water was safe for consumption,” the class action lawsuit states.

A number of other class action lawsuits have already been filed against city and state officials regarding the Flint water crisis including one from a Michigan mother of three and another by the American Civil Liberties Union.

If approved, this water contamination class action lawsuit will be open to all Class Members who owned or rented property in Flint, Mich. since April 25, 2014. In addition, the lawsuit will be open to Flint residents who tested positive for lead in their blood system and those who experienced personal injury as a result of the exposure to the toxic drinking water.

The class action lawsuit seeks to compensate Flint residents for the medical expenses they have already incurred as well as future expenses for medical monitoring.

The plaintiffs are represented by Hunter Shkolnik of Napoli Shkolnik Law PLLC.

The Flint Water Contamination Class Action Lawsuit is Myia McMillian, et al. v. Richard D. Snyder, et al., Case No. 2:16-cv-10796 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.

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