PFAS Litigation Analysis

This project was the culmination of months of reporting on the toxic group of chemicals known as PFAS, or “forever chemicals.” The idea behind the story was to attempt to put a price tag to all of the PFAS-related litigation. Up to that point, no one had quantified how many lawsuits were being filed over PFAS contamination.

To achieve this story, I spent months gathering and analyzing thousands of legal complaints mentioning PFAS. I then used the data to guide my reporting and tell a story about how the lawsuits evolved over the course of a decade.

This story challenged me to build up the infrastructure on my team to handle such large amounts of litigation data. I worked with internal partners at my organization to gain access to an API that allowed bulk downloads of litigation data. I then built out a data processing pipeline in R that allowed me to regularly update case information and apply this approach to other projects. Finally, I worked with my team to build out an interactive Flourish graphic that visualized how the focus of PFAS litigation changed over the years.

Graphics from the story