Douglas Y. Curran

Since joining the firm in 1981, Doug has handled a wide variety of litigation as well as arbitration and administrative proceedings, including matters where significant amounts of electronic discovery (eDiscovery) were, and still are, involved. Representative examples of his experience include:

• Significant experience in environmental and toxic tort litigation.
• Large declaratory judgment lawsuits involving property and pollution insurance coverage.
• Superfund enforcement actions and in numerous CERCLA cost recovery suits, including representation of the City of Wichita in a large CERCLA cost recovery action against several dozen PRPs who contaminated more than 3,800 acres of commercial and residential properties near downtown.
• Actions involving the enforcement of private indemnity agreements between potentially responsible parties at Superfund sites and in environmental insurance coverage cases.
• Represented the City of Overland Park, KS against multiple insurance carriers who had issued policies to the city from the early 1960s to the late 1980s.
• Defense of an insured in a declaratory judgment action brought by insurers regarding disputed insurance coverage for thousands of underlying asbestos cases.
• Actions concerning Clean Air Act violations, petroleum pipeline spills, bioremediation of petroleum wastes, and air emission permit violations.
• Considerable experience in wastewater discharge permit violations, waterways cleanups, and coal gasification wastes.

Education

Of Note

Doug has worked closely with more than 100 environmental expert witnesses and consultants on numerous subjects, including the following:

• fate and transport of wastes and groundwater modeling;
• toxicology, geology and hydrogeology;
• source identification, waste generation processes, site operational compliance, property appraisals, cleanup costs, consistency with the NCP, suitability of spill response measures, and historical site investigations; and
• insurance coverage issues, including proving the terms of lost policies, the evolution of the pollution exclusion and asbestos exclusion, and the allocation of defense and indemnity costs under general liability policies.

In addition, Doug has co-authored a law review article on insurance coverage issues, has spoken at a national conference concerning these matters and has given numerous presentations on environmental and insurance issues. Further, he has extensive experience in all aspects of electronic discovery.

Community Involvement

Bar Admissions

Professional Affiliations

Articles

Presentations