WHEN Justice launches to fund suits against big polluters
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- WHEN Justice officially launched on Earth Day in April 2026 with a model of raising funds to cover scientific testing, expert analysis, and sampling costs in environmental lawsuits against large corporations.
- The nonprofit's approach was validated by the AT&T/Lake Tahoe case, where WHEN's $100,000 funded scuba-diver sampling and lead isotopic testing that proved AT&T's abandoned cables — containing over 100,000 pounds of lead — were contaminating the lake, leading to a settlement within nine weeks after more than two years of stalled litigation.
- WHEN Justice is currently fundraising to support a lawsuit involving a long-closed hazardous waste disposal site on San Pablo Bay, California, where toxic substances are allegedly leaching from a landfill into the bay.
- Jacqueline Biner, WHEN's CEO and legal officer, said litigation often comes down to who has more money rather than the merits of the case, adding that strategic funding could make it more cost-efficient for corporations to clean up than to fight in court.
- Erica Maharg, the environmental attorney who represented the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance against AT&T, said WHEN's funding provided the evidence needed at a critical time and that access to litigation funding lets smaller groups take on bigger cases.
- Because environmental lawsuits often include cost recovery, WHEN's donations can sometimes be reused to fund multiple cases from the same original contribution — and the nonprofit plans to build an interactive crowdfunding platform where donors can direct funds to specific fights.
- Biner said WHEN sees losing cases as acceptable if they create momentum, educate courts, or place new accountability on corporations — framing impact as broader than just verdicts.
Why it matters: For smaller environmental groups, the cost of scientific evidence is the main barrier to winning pollution cases against well-funded corporations. WHEN's $100,000 unblocked the AT&T case after two years of stalled litigation and produced a nine-week settlement — proof that targeted funding at the right moment can resolve cases that traditional philanthropy and regulators overlook.
