Civil Litigation
The Firm represents clients in federal and state court litigation, and administrative agency adjudicatory proceedings, primarily in Illinois and Colorado. Mr. Daggett has also served as lead attorney, with local counsel support, in litigation in other states as a member of the federal bar of U.S. District Courts in Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio, and admitted pro hoc vice for specific lawsuits in several other jurisdictions. He handles client’s claims from start to finish, from pre-litigation negotiations, through the trial court phase, and appeals in state and federal appellate courts.
Mr. Daggett has extended experience in representing both plaintiffs and defendants in environmental lawsuits, with a particular focus on cases under the “Citizen Suit” provisions of federal environmental statutes. These have included recovery of $2.6 million of his client-plaintiffs’ Superfund cleanup costs in a CERCLA case; winning a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court decision reversing an adverse decision against his team’s client-defendant in an EPCRA enforcement citizen suit; and a pending RCRA citizen suit to force cleanup of a dry cleaner site to his client-plaintiff’s adjacent property. He also filed a malpractice lawsuit under state tort law against an environmental consultant who negligently failed to find contamination on property his client-plaintiff was buying, and successfully recovered the entire cleanup cost from the consultant and its insurer.
The Firm handles administrative agency adjudicatory proceedings, variances and rulemakings before federal and state regulatory agencies; these are addressed on the “Compliance Counselling” page on this website. The Firm also serves as co-counsel to other law firms that lack attorneys devoted to the complicated area of environmental law, or that otherwise need local counsel for their litigation in Chicago or Denver.