{"id":49687,"date":"2025-11-17T11:58:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T11:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/49687\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T11:58:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T11:58:07","slug":"judge-to-hear-from-murray-hill-neighbors-seeking-class-action-suit-against-chemical-plant-over-pungent-odor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/49687\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge to hear from Murray Hill neighbors seeking class action suit against chemical plant over pungent odor"},"content":{"rendered":"

DUVAL COUNTY, Fla. \u2013 Thousands of Murray Hill neighbors are waiting to see if their fight against a Jacksonville chemical plant will move forward as one big case.<\/p>\n

Neighbors said they\u2019ve been dealing with unpleasant odors for years, and on Monday, a judge could decide if the residents can join forces in a class action against the International Flavors and Fragrances (IFF) plant, which they believe is responsible for the smell.<\/p>\n

If the judge agrees, this case could represent more than 6,000 residents who say the smell from the Westside facility is ruining their quality of life.<\/p>\n

RELATED | Murray Hill residents say industrial plant stench reduces their quality of life<\/a><\/p>\n

Neighbors first sued the IFF plant in 2021, but that case was thrown out<\/a> because the judge said it didn\u2019t belong in federal court\u2014not because of the claims themselves. <\/p>\n

So, they started over in January 2022, filing in Duval County Circuit Court. The lawsuit claims strong and potentially harmful odors from the Lane Avenue plant invade their homes, sometimes waking them up at night.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou smell it early in the morning, you smell it on the weekends when you can\u2019t contact the city to inform them that there is an issue. Uh, it permeates our homes while we\u2019re sleeping. Uh, it reduces our quality of life. You don\u2019t want to go outside,\u201d Michael Hammond said in May.<\/p>\n

MORE | Lawsuit: Jacksonville perfume plant doesn\u2019t pass the sniff test<\/a><\/p>\n

Neighbors said they\u2019ve spent years working with city and state regulators to solve the odor problem, but claim IFF hasn\u2019t fixed it and instead points the blame elsewhere.<\/p>\n

IFF hasn\u2019t commented on Monday\u2019s hearing, but in the past, the company said it complies with environmental rules and investigates complaints.<\/p>\n

Monday\u2019s hearing begins at 9 a.m. inside the Duval County Courthouse.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DUVAL COUNTY, Fla. \u2013 Thousands of Murray Hill neighbors are waiting to see if their fight against a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49688,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117,7908],"class_list":{"0":"post-49687","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-jacksonville","9":"tag-jacksonville-headlines","10":"tag-jacksonville-news","11":"tag-murray-hill"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}