A federal judicial panel has ordered a New Jersey judge to oversee more than a dozen lawsuits alleging that high-end artificial turf installed at high schools and other athletic facilities has quickly crumbled apart.
The suits allege that FieldTurf USA Inc., which is based in Calhoun, Georgia, installed artificial turf in 1,700 soccer, baseball and other sports venues in the United States from 2005 to 2012, generating $570 million. The lawsuits, half of which are class actions, were filed after a series of articles published in December by NJ Advance Media reported that the turf was defective.
