Stuart H. Smith

Stuart H. Smith is an attorney based in New Orleans fighting major oil companies and other polluters

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Most lawyers would be intimidated by taking on the world’s most powerful and secretive company, the giant Exxon-Mobil Corporation. But Stuart H. Smith isn’t like most attorneys. With his expert knowledge about the kind of radioactive pollution caused by oil-and-natural-gas production, Smith knew how to show before a jury how the global oil giant had for years systematically dumped radioactive pipe – and in the process poisoned its unknowing blue-collar workforce – on one man’s property just outside Smith native city, New Orleans. And he and his partners made an audacious request: That the jury come back with a 10-digit verdict against Exxon-Mobil. But after hearing the case, Smith’s team indeed won a $1.056 billion judgment. Although later reduced somewhat by an appeals judge, it remains a record penalty for this type of case.

Stuart H. Smith has been one of America’s top environmental lawyers for more than a quarter-century, taking on not just Exxon-Mobil but Chevron, BP, and other large corporations that had harmed their neighbors and their workers with hazardous pollution. His success is reflected in the title of his autobiography: Crude Justice: How I Fought Big Oil and Won, and What You Should Know About the New Environmental Attack on America – a book that award-winning documentarians Josh and Rebecca Tickell called “a true-to-life, nail-biting, edge-of-your-seat, hard-hitting David vs. Goliath thriller..”

Even a personal battle with cancer could not stop Stuart from his determination to tackle an array of complex cases, from taking on Big Pharma on behalf of the babies born to opioid abuse, to suing oil and gas companies and contractors for failure to follow environmental laws. Today, he is of counsel to Cooper Law Firm, and along with his Partner Barry Cooper, this New Orleans-based practice of plaintiffs attorneys is licensed to practice around the world and continue their fight for environmental justice and the protection of consumer rights in toxic torts and medical malpractice suits.

Smith has also been lead counsel on more than 100 oil pollution cases, which focus primarily on damages caused by the wastewater and sludges oil companies discharge into the environment. His first big case was groundbreaking – a lawsuit against the giant Chevron Corp. on behalf of workers at a Mississippi disposal yard who were exposed and in some cases sickened by exposure to radioactive debris on oil pipes. The case – which resulted in a favorable settlement for his clients – brought much needed national attention to the problems known within the oil and gas industry as technologically enhanced radioactive material (TERM), or naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM).

On April 21, 2010, Smith was flying his jet back to New Orleans when he saw the black plume of smoke from BP’s badly damaged and leaking Deepwater Horizon rig, out in the Gulf of Mexico. Over the next few years, he threw himself into seeking justice for the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of its worst environmental disaster. He worked with a team of experts that uncovered evidence that government and BP officials were downplaying the extent and the damage of the spill and published it on his popular environmental blog. As a lawyer, he fought for the interest of the Gulf’s commercial fishermen and numerous other clients.

Latest stories

Radiation has turned north county St. Louis into a National Sacrifice Zone. It’s way past time for the feds to act

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(NOTE: For more detailed information on how the North County radiation site might affect you or your property, please visit our website, stlouisradiationlawsuits.com, or call 516-908-6901. After decades of denial followed by years of delay, the federal government began telling the concerned residents of St. Louis’ North County suburbs a few years back that it finally had a plan to deal with...

The Oil and Gas Industry Produces Radioactive Waste. Lots of It

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A new report from the Natural Resources Defense Council confirms Rolling Stone‘s bombshell investigation into the fossil fuel industry’s waste problem. New Rolling Stone Article by Justin Nobel. Massive amounts of radioactive waste brought to the surface by oil and gas wells have overwhelmed the industry and the state and federal agencies that regulate it, according to a report released...

Four months after Port Neches blast, residents are frustrated and angry

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Like many other small towns along the western Gulf Coast in Texas and my native Louisiana that are dominated by the petrochemical industry, folks in Port Neches, Texas, used to breathe in the occasional noxious odors from its biggest employer — a giant, aging facility belonging to the TPC Group — and considered it the smell of money. At first, residents’ faith in the petrochemical...

New questions about cause of massive Texas chemical plant blast

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At TPC Group’s massive, aging petrochemical plant in Port Neches. Texas, near the Gulf Coast, tit was not supposed to be like this. In 2017, the company reached a deal with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to aggressively monitor the air surrounding the facility for 1,3 butadiene — a highly flammable, carcinogenic chemical that had been leaking from the site — and to take...

How Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’ is harming the earth’s ozone layer

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With the 2020s underway, there’s been a renewed focus on the problem of climate change. The horrific bushfires in Australia have been a reminder that while the world’s leaders did too little over the course of the last decade, global warming has gone from a futuristic threat to a real-time crisis. Many wonder if modern society can make the kind of sacrifices that will be needed to reduce our use...

How lax regs, low taxes power Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’

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As an environmental lawyer with close ties to Louisiana’s ever-growing community of local activists fighting on the same issues, I’ve been sounding the alarm about the state’s so-called Cancer Alley — the web of massive petrochemical plants lining the lower Mississippi River from Baton Rouge to below New Orleans — for years. The small river towns between those two cities —...

Here’s a reasonable solution to surprise medical bills

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As a cancer survivor, I know how devastating it can be to get hit with high, unexpected medical bills — especially when they trigger never-ending fights with insurance companies. The absolute last thing that patients recovering from major illnesses, surgeries, or procedures should have to worry about is facing more financial burdens when they should be only focused on their recovery. That’s...

Texas chemical blast shows we’re moving backwards on pollution, safety

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Thanksgiving was cancelled in Port Neches, Texas, this year. Things ever should have gotten to this point. Very early on the days before the holiday, this Gulf Coast community near the Texas-Louisiana border was rocked by one explosion that lit the night sky — then another, hours later. Residents of Port Neches and several surrounding communities, where windows were shattered by the force...

‘We live in constant fear’: New map shows staggering risks of La.’s ‘Cancer Alley’

There was a time not that long ago — back when Sharon Lavigne was still back in high school in the community of St. James, Louisiana, long before she became a grandmother of 12 — when the people of her tiny Mississippi River town were happier and healthier. It was before “Cancer Alley” became “Cancer Alley.” It was during her teenage years that the first petrochemical plant opened up...

Most Americans want to end offshore drilling. Now we need government to listen

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Most Americans didn’t pay a lot of attention to offshore oil drilling before April 20, 2010. Indeed, it had been less than two years since a Republican National Convention crowd in Minneapolis had erupted in a chant of “drill, baby, drill!” — reflecting a public mood of wanting cheaper prices at the gas pump and not particularly caring where the oil came from. After all, it had been nearly...

Stuart H. Smith is an attorney based in New Orleans fighting major oil companies and other polluters.
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