Mass Torts: State of the Art : Mass Torts Lawyer & Attorney : Vorys, Sater, Seymour & Pease Law Firm : Toxic Torts & Wrongful Death

Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court granted a petition for writ of certiorari in Bruesewitz v. Wyeth, Inc. and will review the Third Circuit’s holding that a plaintiffs’ design defect claims against the manufacturer of a vaccination were expressly preempted by the 1986 National Childhood Vaccination Injury Act (“NCVIA”) and that plaintiffs failed to establish a manufacturing defect or a warning defect claim under the Act.

In a footnote in the Bruesewitz opinion the Third Circuit had distinguished the Supreme Court’s opinion in Wyeth v. Levine in which the Court held that federal law did not preempt state tort claims that alleged that a drug manufacturer failed to adequately warn of the dangers associated with a drug on the basis that unlike the NCVIA, there was no express preemption provision in the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (“FDCA”). Another distinguishing factor was Congress’ silence on the issue of preemption in the FDCA “coupled with its certain awareness of the prevalence of state tort litigation” which was “powerful evidence that Congress did not intend FDA oversight to be the exclusive means of ensuring drug safety and effectiveness” as the Court stated in Levine. In addition, the Third Circuit noted that Levine recognized that under federal law, a drug manufacturer could strengthen a drug’s label without preapproval from the FDA, which “stands in contrast to the FDA’s far-more extensive control and oversight of the drug’s design and alternation.”

Also the Third Circuit had disagreed with the interpretation of the Georgia Supreme Court on this issue. In American Home Products Corp. v. Ferrari (in which a petition for writ of certiorari is pending), the Georgia high court had ruled that the Vaccine Act “clearly did not preempt all design defect claims against vaccine manufacturers, but rather provides that such a manufacturer cannot be held liable for defective design, if it is determined, on a case-by-case basis, that a particular vaccine was unavoidably unsafe.” The Third Circuit noted in Bruesewitz that if the NCVIA was interpreted to permit a case-by-case analysis of whether “particular vaccine side effects are avoidable, every design defect claim is subject to evaluation by a court.”

It will be interesting to see how the Supreme Court resolves the split between the Third Circuit and the Georgia Supreme Court on this issue.

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Score one for transparency and fairness in the Mountain State.

The West Virginia Record reported in this article on March 3 that Circuit Judge Ronald Wilson has now ordered that all asbestos plaintiffs in West Virginia must henceforth disclose which bankruptcy trusts they have communicated with and against which trusts they might have a claim. The purpose of the order is to ensure that defendants in asbestos cases receive proper credit when plaintiffs are paid by trusts of bankrupt defendants.
 

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The case of Cull v. Perry Homes is long and winding and fits the old adage of being careful what you wish for; especially in litigation. Robert and Jane Cull of Mansfield, Texas bought a home from Perry Homes for $233,730. They alleged it had serious structural problems. They sued Perry Homes and two warranty companies in Texas District Court. One of the warranty companies moved to compel arbitration with the American Arbitration Association pursuant a contract clause. The Culls responded with a 79-page objection which called the AAA, among other things, “incompetent, biased, and fails to provide fair and appropriate arbitration panels.” The case proceeded in court. There was extensive discovery conducted, including 14 depositions and five motions to compel by the Culls. Four days before trial, the Culls moved to compel arbitration. The trial court agreed. The Supreme Court denied a petition for writ of mandamus blocking the move to arbitration.

The arbitrator gave the Culls an $800,000 award, including punitive damages and damages for mental anguish (things arbitration panels are supposed to protect litigants from versus jury trials).

Perry Homes appealed. The Texas Supreme Court reversed; not the arbitration award itself – for which the law is extremely deferential – but the trial court’s decision to go to arbitration.

The Supreme Court stated that the key issue was whether the party moving to compel arbitration had substantially invoked the litigation process. In this case, it clearly had. There is not much more that the Culls could have done to invoke litigation short of going through the trial itself. The plaintiff’s 79-page objection to the AAA seemed to have a large part in the Court’s decision.

On retrial, the jury awarded the Culls $51 million.

Perry Homes has incrementally gotten what it wished for (an arbitration set out in its contract, a new trial after the arbitration gave a bad result), with increasingly bad results. The Supreme Court’s 2008 opinion received lots of press for its seeming favoring of a well-connected defendant over even its historical favor of arbitration.

The case continually made for favoring arbitration is that it reduces cost and time. This frequently does not occur. Perhaps we should go back to favor arbitration only in cases where experts are needed to determine the outcome, not for run-of-the mill private litigation that has until recently been the purview of our public courts.

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We have been watching with interest recent developments in a solvents case currently pending in Summit County, OH: Widican v. Bridgestone/Firestone North American Tire, LLC, et al. A summary judgment order entered in that case may portend a serious body blow to employee "intentional tort" claims against Ohio employers for occupational illnesses with long latencies.

Beginning in 1939, worker's compensation was the exclusive remedy that Ohio workers could seek against their employers for injuries suffered in the course of their employment. That is to say, workers' compensation preempted employer tort liability. This involved the trade-off typical of most workers compensation systems: the employee received reliable compensation for workplace injuries without having to prove fault, and the employer in return received a predictable and reasonable cap on its liability for such injuries.

All that changed in 1982. That year, the Ohio Supreme Court held in Blankenship v. Cincinnati Milicon Chemicals, Inc. that there was an exception to worker's compensation preemption. If the employee could prove that the employer intended to harm him/her, he/she could recover both workers compensation and the full range of tort damages against his/her employer. Two years later, the Ohio Supreme Court in Jones v. VIP Development Company further expanded the exception, holding that "intentional tort" could be established by showing that the employer knew that injury to the employee was "substantially certain." The requisite "intent," the Court later explained in Fyffe v. Jeno's, Inc., was something more than "reckless" or "willful and wanton" conduct, but something less than specific intent to harm.

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In a perplexing opinion the Second Court of Appeals affirmed a summary judgment granted in favor of a manufacturer of asbestos-containing joint compound in a mesothelioma case. As we mentioned in our prior posting on this case, the appeal involved the review of the Texas asbestos MDL pre-trial court’s ruling that qualitative testimony of Dorman Smith’s use of a Kelly-Moore product “on a regular basis” was insufficient.

In Rosemary Smith, et al v. Kelly-Moore Paint Company, the appellate court first addressed and rejected plaintiffs’ contention that Borg-Warner only applied to asbestosis cases and did not apply to mesothelioma cases.

Second, in contrast to the pre-trial court’s ruling that plaintiffs’ qualitative evidence was insufficient, the appellate court reviewed the exposure testimony of fact witnesses, the opinions of plaintiff’s expert, and the opinion of a defense expert that opined that Dorman’s cumulative total exposure to asbestos amounted to 9 to 15 fibers/cc years over the course of his career and stated that “the Smiths at least raised a genuine issue of material fact as to the aggregate dose of Kelly-Moore asbestos-containing joint compound (and total asbestos fibers) to which Dorman was exposed.” The appellate court held that “the Smiths raised a genuine issue of material fact as to the Lohrmann factors.”

This holding is puzzling as the Texas Supreme Court made it clear in Borg-Warner that “proof of mere frequency, regularity, and proximity is necessary but not sufficient, as it provides none of the quantitative information necessary to support causation under Texas law.

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Yesterday in a unanimous opinion (Hertz Corp. v. Friend et al.) the U.S. Supreme Court held that the “nerve center” test will determine the location of a corporation’s “principal place of business” for ascertaining whether a federal court can exercise diversity jurisdiction.

The Supreme Court noted that since Congress codified that a corporation is a resident of the State in which it was incorporated and the State of its “principal place of business” appellate courts have adopted numerous approaches in determining the location of a corporation’s principal place of business. Some courts applied the “nerve center” test for corporations with “far-flung” business activities which focused on the location of the corporation’s decision-makers. Other courts focused more heavily on where a corporation’s actual business activities were located. The number of factors grew as courts combined aspects of the “nerve center” and “business activity” tests to look to a corporation’s “total activities,” sometimes to try to determine what has been described as the corporation’s “center of gravity.”

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Readers of The Wall Street Journal may recall the saga of the administrative law judge in NYC who sued a family-owned dry-cleaner for $57 million over a lost pair of pants. Dubbed “The Great American Pants Suit” by this WSJ article, the judge’s law suit was touted by some as emblematic of the flaws in our tort system. When the judge’s suit failed to produce a windfall verdict, dry cleaners everywhere presumably breathed a sigh of relief.

Recent word from EPA, however, may give much greater cause for alarm for the dry cleaning industry. Perchloroethylene, “perc,” PCE, TCE, tetrachloroethyene and tetracholorethylene are solvents used in dry cleaning. Approximately 28,000 U.S. dry cleaners use this family of chemicals, which are the only air toxic emitted from the dry cleaning process. PCE has been subject to limited EPA regulation under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), because it was in use long before TSCA was passed in 1976. However, according to this Columbus Dispatch article, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson indicated in a speech in Columbus last week that she believes TSCA is “toothless,” and intends to press Congress for increased EPA authority to review chemicals. Among proposed changes in EPA regulation of PCE: classification as a “likely” carcinogen (rather than a “possible” carcinogen), and reduction in airborne limits. Litigation over injuries attributed to PCE and other chlorinated solvents is nothing new, of course. However, if Administrator Jackson’s proposed changes are implemented, exposure claims in general and cancer claims in particular are likely be significantly affected by the ensuing “hindsight bias” engendered by the new state of the art.

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Under current federal incentives for “green” energy sources, developers have been rushing to place wind turbines in many rural areas. Indeed, even before the Obama administration’s current emphasis on renewable energy, wind farm development has grown rather dramatically in the last decade, as shown by this time elapsed map of installed wind capacity.

In a recent ABA Journal article, the author notes that many neighbors of proposed wind farms have been challenging the placement of the giant turbines near their homes. Most such challenges have occurred before local land use authorities or state public utility boards, but some have been filed in court.

Most interesting from the mass tort perspective is this: at least some challenges to wind turbine developments have been based upon the purported human health effects of the turbines. Nearby homeowners claim that the low level sound, vibration and shadow flicker from the spinning turbines cause a host of non-specific complaints, such as sleep disruption, headaches, nausea and fatigue.

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In Hall v. Warren Pumps LLC, et al., the California Court of Appeals, Second Appellate District, Second Division, held last week that manufacturers of pumps and valves who did not manufacture, sell or distribute asbestos insulation applied to their products are not liable under California law for injuries caused by that insulation. In so holding, the Second Appellate District joins the First Appellate District (Taylor v. Elliott Turbomachinery Co., Inc.), and the Second Appellate District, Third Division (Merrill v. Leslie Control, Inc.), both of which reached the same conclusions.

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Hooray!

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Yesterday the Illinois Supreme Court issued an opinion in which they rejected statutory caps on non-economic damages in medical malpractice actions as unconstitutional under the state’s constitution. This isn’t entirely surprising as the Illinois Supreme Court had previously held in Best v. Taylor Machine Works, 179 Ill. 2d 367 (1997) that Section 2-115.1 which provided for caps on non-economic damages in all cases were unconstitutional as they violated the special legislation clause which was intended “to prevent arbitrary legislative classifications that discriminate in favor of a select group without a sound, reasonable basis.” In Best, the court also noted that although the legislature may limit certain types of damages, such as damages recoverable in statutory causes of action, the limitation on damages in section 2–1115.1 violated the separation of powers clause.

Following its holding in Best, the Illinois high court found that the caps in the medical malpractice statute was an unconstitutional legislative remittitur that violates separation of powers. According the court, under the statute the trial court is “required to override the jury’s deliberative process and reduce any non-economic damages in excess of the statutory cap, irrespective of the particular facts and circumstances, and without the plaintiff’s consent. Section 2–1706.5 thus violates the separation of powers clause because it ‘unduly encroaches upon the fundamentally judicial prerogative of determining whether a jury’s assessment of damages is excessive within the meaning of the law.’ Best, 179 Ill. 2d at 414. Section 2–1706.5, like section 2–1115.1, effects an unconstitutional legislative remittitur.”

The Court continued that “[t]he separation of powers clause prohibits one branch of government from exercising “powers properly belonging to another.” Ill. Const. 1970, art. II, §1. Thus, the inquiry under the separation of powers clause is not whether the damages cap is rationally related to a legitimate government interest but, rather, whether the legislature, through its adoption of the damages cap, is exercising powers properly belonging to the judiciary. In other words, does the statute unduly encroach on the judiciary’s ‘sphere of authority’….”
 

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A lot, actually. Or so it seems from this excellent and highly readable essay on practical jury selection. Be sure to read all the way through the jury consultant's response.

Hat tip: Marginal Revolution 

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Eight contract workers recently filed suit against BP Products North America Inc. and Pasadena Tank Corp. in Galveston County claiming they were exposed to “extremely high levels of benzene,” at BP’s Texas City refinery on Aug. 19, 2009. The exposure allegedly occurred when a damaged pipe began "spewing" chemicals in an area where the plaintiffs were working. According to the plaintiffs, they immediately evacuated the area and sought medical treatment where they learned they had been exposed to benzene.

The plaintiffs now seek $500 million in damages for pain and suffering, and mental anguish associated with being exposed to benzene, yet they make no claims of suffering from benzene-related illness. Notably, these allegations follow a $100 million verdict (mostly punitive damages) handed down against BP less than a month ago to workers who were briefly sickened by unexplained fumes (maybe CS2) at BP's Texas City refinery.  .

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The California Supreme Court will review an asbestos case against valve and pump manufacturers that will provide the opportunity to reconcile divergent California appellate court views on the issue of whether a manufacturer had a duty to warn of the dangers associated with the subsequent application of asbestos-containing materials to its products.

In O’Neil v. Crane Co., plaintiffs asserted mesothelioma claims of a naval officer that was exposed to asbestos during his military service on ships. A panel of the California Court of Appeal, First Appellate District reversed the trial court and permitted the case to proceed against manufacturers of pumps and valves for harm caused by asbestos-containing replacement packing and insulation which were used with their products but they didn't manufacture.

The appellate court disagreed with the reasoning of the California Court of Appeal, First Appellate District, in Taylor v. Elliott Turbomachinery Co., 171 Cal. App. 4th 564 (2009). Although the facts were very similar to O’Neil, the appellate court in Taylor rejected liability for pump and valve manufacturers as they were manufacturers of non-defective component parts of a greater whole, and they didn't manufacture the asbestos-containing products that caused the harm.

To further complicate the issue, a different panel of the Second Appellate District agreed with the reasoning in Taylor and held that valve manufacturer “owed no duty to warn against dangers in products, used in association with or as replacement parts of its valves, which it did not manufacture or supply.” For detailed write-up of the Second Appellate District's opinion, see our earlier post on Merrill v. Leslie Control, Inc.

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As my mentor used to say, "most people like to help others; and they really like to help when they can do it with someone else's money." 

$100 million is a lot of help.

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As part of its REACH effort the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) has today launched what it describes as the "pilot form" of a webpage which, it is hoped, will ultimately "allow EU citizens to make informed decisions about the use of chemicals to which they may be exposed."

Today's press release has a link to the new database. When using the database search function be sure to check the "I accept the Terms and Conditions" box or it won't work. Gotta love lawyers. Anyway, when looking for something like benzene be sure to look in the "Pre-Registered Substances" directory because it won't be found in the "Registered Substances" directory and the search engine apparently doesn't look outside of whatever directory you're in.

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In the recently decided Pennsylvania case of Hicks v. Dana Companies, LLC  the appellate court considered whether the trial court had committed error in its handling of the following question posed by the jury after two-and-a-half hours of deliberations:

"Judge Lynn, can we please have verification as to what a 'factual cause' is? To determine such, do we consider each company's product individually or all collectively?"

Rather than answer the question, which actually got right to heart of the matter, the trial court read the following instruction:

"If you find that a defendant's asbestos-containing product was defective, the defendant is liable for all harm to the plaintiff caused by such defective condition. A defective condition is [sic] the defendant's asbestos-containing product is the factual cause of the mesothelioma suffered by the plaintiff if the mesothelioma would not have occurred without exposure to the defendant's defective product. That's factual cause."

Is it any wonder that jury questions are invariably found to be confusing and often result in jurors rendering verdicts they didn't mean or want to render?

Anyway, the jury's question was a profound one. In this age of peripheral defendants, typically none of whose products alone could have produced mesothelioma, is it fair to lay at any one defendant's feet "all harm to the plaintiff" when alone its product could have produced no harm at all?

The opinion is significant in at least two other respects. First it embraces the logical fallacy of conflating risk and causation by approving of causation testimony founded only on the observation that in a dose response disease each quantum of dose increases risk. Second it appears to support the contention that a defendant's application of a warning label to its product is a tacit admission that the product causes the harm warned of.

While the court goes out of its way to distinguish this case from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's ruling in Gregg v. V-J Auto Parts Company it is difficult to see how it has in fact done anything other than accept the one fiber theory so long as plaintiff has an expert willing to swear to it.

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The Texas Supreme Court released its opinion today in the Whirlpool v. Camacho case. Joab Camacho, a minor, burned to death in a trailer fire allegedly caused by a defectively designed Whirlpool dryer. The plaintiffs’ expert, who had never examined the dryer as it had been discarded, nevertheless opined that lint from the dryer somehow collected in a corrugated exhaust shoot, backed up through the mechanical systems of the dryer, caught fire in the tumbler, smoldered when the dryer shut off, was reignited by oxygen when the door was opened and then ignited the clothes in the dryer. Plaintiffs claimed a safer alternative design would have utilized a smooth exhaust shoot. The sole support for the opinion of plaintiffs’ expert was a review of an allegedly similar dryer and Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) reports of various dryer tests. The jury accepted the assessment and awarded $14 million in damages against Whirlpool.

The Texas Supreme Court conducted a full review of the expert evidence and found Plaintiff’s expert ultimately unreliable under Robinson v. Merrill-Dow. For example, plaintiffs’ expert had not conducted any tests on the dryer in question nor on any similar dryer and could not explain why tests to see if the model in question posed such a risk wasn’t feasible. Further, his opinions were made solely for litigation. Finally, the only data he did rely upon was not sufficiently similar to that for the dryer and circumstances in Camacho’s case to make it reliable.

With this opinion the Texas Supreme Court has again confirmed that the mere ipse dixit of an expert witness is not sufficient to establish the reliability of the Robinson relevance/reliability analysis.
 

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In a recent published opinion the California Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District opined that for a wife to pursue a claim against her husband’s employer for so-called take home exposures, her complaint should specify the chemicals involved and injuries alleged. (Oddone v. The Superior Court of Los Angeles County, Cal. Ct. App., No. B213784, Nov. 24, 2009).

The plaintiff had alleged that she was secondarily exposed to chemicals from her husband and his work clothes. She also asserted claims on behalf of her husband for his personal injuries which remain pending. Her husband had worked for 33 years processing motion picture film for Technicolor Inc. She specified in her complaint her husband’s injuries (glioblastoma multiforme and skin rashes) and specific chemicals that allegedly harmed him (formaldehyde and perchloroethylene), but she made vague allegations regarding her own personal injury claims against Technicolor. She alleged that she was injured from chemical substances that her husband brought home with him either on his body or clothes but failed to identify her specific injures or chemicals that caused her harm.

The defendant moved to dismiss her secondary exposure claim on the basis that it owed no duty to its employee’s wife. The trial court agreed and this appeal ensued.

The appellate court acknowledged that “[t]here appears to be no reported California decision addressing the scope of the defendant’s duty in a case where the plaintiff claims to have been injured as a result of secondary exposure to chemicals.” However, the court continued that “[g]iven appropriately specific allegations, this may be quite possible.”

The court explained that in this case “petitioner’s allegations simply do not establish any connection, much less a close connection, between the defendant’s conduct and her alleged (and unspecified) injuries.”

According to the court, a “close connection” is required because under Rowland v. Christian, 69 Cal.2d 108 (1968), it is one of several significant factors to consider when determining whether a duty exists to an injured party in this circumstance. Although the Rowland factors are to be balanced against one another, the court stated the “close connection” factor is especially important in a secondary exposure suit.

“That connection is only shown by setting forth specifically which chemicals cause which specified injuries,” said the court. “In a secondary exposure case, the allegation that as a result of the exposure the specified chemical entered the plaintiff's body is of particular importance. Central issues in such a case are whether secondary exposure to a specified chemical is even possible and, if it is, whether the exposure will result in the ingestion of the chemical into the plaintiff's body.”

As the plaintiff failed to identify a specific chemical or to specify any one of her alleged injuries she could not “connect any specified chemical or chemicals to a specific injury or injuries” and so, in this case, her take home claim failed.

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This afternoon the EPA announced that “greenhouse gases (GHG) threaten the public health and welfare of the American people.”

According to the press release the EPA’s final findings responded to the 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision (Commonwealth of Massachusetts et al. v. Environmental Protection Agency, decided Apr. 2, 2007) that GHGs fit within the Clean Air Act definition of air pollutants. The findings allow EPA to finalize the GHG standards proposed earlier this year for new light-duty vehicles as part of the joint rulemaking with the Department of Transportation.

The EPA’s endangerment finding covers emissions of six gases – carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride.

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Law.com is reporting that Philadelphia juries have awarded a total of $103 million in punitive damages alone to two women in separate breast cancer product liability trials. The women claimed that hormone replacement therapy (HRT) was responsible for their subsequent development of breast cancer.

In light of the recent controversy over the use of Bayesian decision-making approaches to mammography and Pap testing in which probabilities of outcomes are estimated and benefits are then weighed against costs (including other bad outcomes) I thought it might be of interest to see if such an approach had been applied to HRT. Sure enough, "Bayesian Meta-analysis of Hormone Therapy and Mortality in Younger Postmenopausal Women" was just published in The American Journal of Medicine.

So what does it show? It shows that across a number of randomized controlled trials of HRT in postmenopausal women under 60 those women had a reduced overall mortality compared to those postmenopausal women under 60 who weren't on HRT.

As is often the case in these modern times science does not yield a cure but does allow one to pick one's poison as it were; not to avoid death but to influence the odds of whether you die of stroke instead of breast cancer.

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The Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection held a hearing titled, "Prioritizing Chemicals for Safety Determination," on Tuesday, November 17, 2009, in 2322 Rayburn House Office Building. The hearing examined the options for prioritizing chemicals for safety determinations in the event that the Committee amends the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

See the Energy and Commerce's website for the testimony that was given on Tuesday, Nov. 17, including testimony by the EPA.
 

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This evening a Broward Circuit Court jury rendered a mega verdict against Philip Morris USA consisting of $56.6 million in past and future medicals plus another $244 million in punitives for good measure. The plaintiff is a 61 year old wheelchair-bound emphysema sufferer.

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In Missouri Pacific Railroad v. Patricia Limmer, et al., the Texas Supreme Court held that state law tort liability for inadequate warnings was preempted when the railroad crossing improvements were federally funded because federal regulations specify what warning devices should be used.

After her husband was killed at a railroad crossing, Patricia Limmer and her two daughters brought a wrongful death action against the railroad company that maintained the crossing. The Limmers alleged that the crossbucks (black-and-white, X-shaped signs that read “RAILROAD CROSSING”) provided inadequate warning for the railroad crossing and that the railroad was negligent in failing to remove a gravel pile and vegetation that restricted drivers’ view of approaching trains. The railroad contended that Limmers’ claims were expressly preempted by the Federal Railroad Safety Act (FRSA) of 1970. The trial court concluded that federal regulations did not apply and a trial on the merits resulted in a $5.1 million verdict in favor of the Limmers, which the court of appeals affirmed.

On a petition for review, the Texas Supreme Court determined that when railroad crossing improvements were federally funded, federal regulations specify what warning devices should be used, and the United States Supreme Court had held that section 20106 of FRSA expressly preempted state tort law actions challenging the adequacy of these devices (Norfolk Southern Ry. v. Shanklin, 526 U.S. 344 (2000)). Similarly, the Limmers’ sight-restriction claim was preempted as it was simply a restatement of their claim that the warning at the crossing was inadequate. Accordingly, the court reversed the court of appeals and rendered a take nothing judgment.
 

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The House version of the health care bill, titled “Affordable Health Care for America Act,” includes a section (pgs. 1431-33) for incentive payments to be made to each State that has a compliant alternative medical liability law. For those of you short on time, scroll down to the bolded portion of Section 2531.

SEC. 2531. MEDICAL LIABILITY ALTERNATIVES.

(a) INCENTIVE PAYMENTS FOR MEDICAL LIABILITY REFORM.—

(1) IN GENERAL.—To the extent and in the amounts made available in advance in appropriations Acts, the Secretary shall make an incentive payment, in an amount determined by the Secretary, to each State that has an alternative medical liability law in compliance with this section.

(2) DETERMINATION BY SECRETARY.—The Secretary shall determine that a State has an alternative medical liability law in compliance with this section if the Secretary is satisfied that—

(A) the State enacted the law after the date of the enactment of this Act and is implementing the law;

(B) the law is effective; and

(C) the contents of the law are in accordance with paragraph (4).

(3) CONSIDERATIONS FOR DETERMINING EFFECTIVENESS.—In determining whether an alternative medical liability law is effective under paragraph (2)(B), the Secretary shall consider whether the law—

(A) makes the medical liability system more reliable through prevention of, or prompt and fair resolution of, disputes;

(B) encourages the disclosure of health care errors; and

(C) maintains access to affordable liability insurance.

(4) CONTENTS OF ALTERNATIVE MEDICAL LIABILITY LAW.—The contents of an alternative liability law are in accordance with this paragraph if—

(A) the litigation alternatives contained in the law consist of certificate of merit, early offer, or both; and

(B) the law does not limit attorneys’ fees or impose caps on damages.

(b) USE OF INCENTIVE PAYMENTS.—Amounts received by a State as an incentive payment under this section shall be used to improve health care in that State.

(c) TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE.—The Secretary may provide technical assistance to the States applying for or receiving an incentive payment under this section.

(d) REPORTS.—Beginning not later than one year after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall submit to the Congress an annual report on the progress States have made in enacting and implementing alternative medical liability laws in compliance with this section. Such reports shall contain sufficient documentation regarding the effectiveness of such laws to enable an objective comparative analysis of such laws.

(e) DEFINITION.—In this section—

(1) the term ‘‘Secretary’’ means the Secretary of Health and Human Services; and

(2) the term ‘‘State’’ includes the several States, District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and each other territory or possession of the United States.

(f) AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.—There are authorized to be appropriated to carry out this section such sums as may be necessary, to remain available until expended.

No wonder it’s 1900+ pages long.

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The maxim “the dose makes the poison” is regularly offered by defendants in toxic tort cases as a premise for the assertion that a particular dose was too small to have been toxic. To demonstrate the concept examples of toxicity due even to essential substances like water are deployed. I’ve done it myself and the retort from plaintiff’s counsel has been invariably mocking. Here are sixteen million reasons why they should reconsider.

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The idea that there are two types of causation, one general and the other specific, is rarely enlightening but increasingly the source of confusion, mischief-making and legal bickering. Take for instance the recent per curiam and dissenting opinions in Huss v. Gayden.

In Huss the plaintiff claimed that the drug Terbutaline caused her to develop debilitating cardiomyopathy. At trial the court permitted some testimony by the defendant's expert to the effect that Terbutaline does not cause cardiomyopathy in humans but prevented him from testifying that Terbutaline did not cause Huss' cardiomyopathy. The holding on appeal was that the defendant's expert had not been allowed to fully express his views on general causation and so the case was reversed and remanded. The dissent vigorously objected, writing that the expert had indeed expressed to the jury all that needed to be said on the subject of general causation, that he was not, through education, training or experience, able to opine on the subject of specific causation and that the verdict should thereby stand.

The dissent, citing Tanner v. Westbrook, wrote that the court was required "to acknowledge the fundamental principle of the general-specific dichotomy: that a witness may be competent to testify about general causation but not specific causation." Now, before I discuss this "fundamental principle" (tomorrow) let's first think a bit about reasoning from the general to the specific.

Assume that Wilbur is a pig and the allegation is that Wilbur has been flying. My expert on pigs takes the stand and testifies "No pig can fly". This is of course a general statement about pigs; but Wilbur is a subset of pigs. My expert ought therefore be allowed to testify that Wilbur cannot fly, whether he's ever examined him or not, because what is true of pigs must necessarily be true of Wilbur. Imagine my dilemma if the dissent had its way and I was required to put on specific expert testimony to the effect that Wilbur hadn't been flying. Where exactly would I find someone with the education, training and expertise in recognizing (to paraphrase the test set out by the dissent) the prior flying habits of pigs "in a particular and unique case"?

Tanner on the other hand presents a distinctly different sort of issue. Let's go back to Wilbur. Now he's alleged to have incubated the H1N1 swine flu and given it to his owner, Zuckerman. The plaintiff's expert takes the stand and opines generally that pigs, being swine, are capable of incubating swine flu. He then concludes that Wilbur, being a pig, must have harbored the flu since he was capable of doing so and since Zuckerman now has the flu. Here the criterion of specificity is in order since not all pigs had the flu and since there were other possible non-swine vectors for Zuckerman's flu. Because plaintiff's expert never isolated antibodies to that flu strain from Wilbur's blood nor did he evince any expertise in the forensic diagnosis of H1N1 in pigs his specific causation testimony is unfounded and rightly excluded.

The real problem is that "the fundamental principle of the general-specific dichotomy" isn't fundamental because there's no real dichotomy. More on that tomorrow.

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John O'Quinn who did as much or more than anyone to change the nature of mass torts died today in an automobile accident in Houston.  I first saw Mr. O'Quinn try a lawsuit some twenty years ago when a client for whom we were preparing to defend three benzene leukemia cases sent me to watch the entire Skeen v. Monsanto trial.  O'Quinn already had a fearsome reputation and so, being a brand new lawyer and not knowing much about how lawsuits were really tried, I expected to see quite a spectacle.  Instead, I learned a lot about how to try a lawsuit.

I suppose I expected all-star wrestling but instead it was much more like a chess match.  By the time O'Quinn was done with voir dire the defendant was left with a panel ranging from bad to awful.  His command of the facts and ability to recall them in the minutest detail was amazing.  And every good cross-examination of one of his witnesses turned out, on re-direct, to have been a well-laid trap so that the witness was not only rehabilitated but the cross was made to appear disingenuous, at best.

Nevertheless, probably because I understood the defendant's case and the science behind it, I thought that the defendant would win.  So each week when I would call my Dad, who's been trying lawsuits for decades, and excitedly recount the week's events. I was always surprised when he would reply that it sounded to him as though the plaintiff was thoroughly thrashing the defendant.  He said that O'Quinn had spun a simple and emotive narrative into which all the pieces of the case easily fit whereas the defendant's story lacked a compelling theme and was overly complex. 

After closing arguments I made a wager with my Dad that the defendant would win.  My Dad predicted a verdict of $10 million dollars.  The jury awarded $100 million dollars in punitive damages alone.

A few years ago I was trying a mesothelioma case in Beaumont.  Down the hall O'Quinn was trying a Fen-phen case.  Suddenly there was a commotion in the hall and our judge sent the bailiff out to see what was happening.  She returned and handed the judge a note whereupon he asked the jurors to leave the courtroom.  After the jurors left Judge Sanderson said "they're not sure exactly how much it comes to but O'Quinn just got a verdict of more than $1 billion dollars for one wrongful death."

John O'Quinn's legendary trial skills need no further elaboration.  However, the impact on the law of his brand of mega-verdicts which posed existential threats to corporations has dramatically changed the practice and much remains to be said about it.  More thoughts on that in a future post.

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Two plaintiffs in Connecticut have sued Burger King, McDonalds and Friendly Ice Cream Corp. for failure to warn them that “well done grilled, or barbecued chicken contains chemicals known to cause cancer.” Plaintiffs, represented by the Cancer Project’s general counsel, allege that grilled chicken contains PhIP (2-Amino-1-methyl-6phenylimidazo [4,5-b]pyridine) a chemical that can increase a person’s risk of developing cancer even if consumed in very small amounts, according to a statement by the Cancer Project.

It is interesting to note that the plaintiffs seem not to have cancer. It is further interesting to note that the plaintiffs do not allege how much the risk of cancer is increased if consuming grilled chicken.

The crux of Plaintiffs’ alleged grief, as alleged in their complaint, is that if restaurants had truthfully informed consumers of the presence of a known carcinogen in their grilled chicken products, many consumers would have chosen to avoid the cancer risk by choosing healthier food options.

It seems that Plaintiffs should have to prove that they have actually been done some harm. If there is only an increased risk, that risk should be weighed against the risk of eating fried chicken, raw chicken, no chicken, a burger, or going hungry. Interestingly, the increased risk of cancer from grilled chicken may have to be juxtaposed against the risk of obesity from eating something fattier, though without PhIP.  Click here.

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Plaintiffs alleged that Dr. Stephen Guilder was exposed to chrysotile asbestos in the 1970’s and 1980’s when he remodeled an attic, worked in road construction, and repaired automobiles. He subsequently developed peritoneal mesothelioma and sued Honeywell as successor to Bendix, Borg-Warner, Honda, and other defendants that settled before trial.

Honeywell filed a motion in limine to exclude or redact a portion of a Bendix employee’s letter to an asbestos supplier which was written in the late 1960’s on the grounds of relevance, which the trial court denied. After Honeywell rested, plaintiffs sought and obtained a directed verdict on Honeywell’s claim that the verdict form should include third parties such as Honda and Honda and Borg-Warner as outlined by the Florida Supreme Court in Fabre v. Marin. The jury awarded plaintiffs over $24 million in damages which included $10.4 million for Guilder’s children for loss of parental consortium.

First, the appellate court addressed the letter written by a Bendix employee. Although the appellate court stated that the letter was relevant to proving Honeywell’s knowledge of the dangers of asbestos in its products, the appellate court agreed with Honeywell that the portion which stated, “My answer to the problem is: if you have enjoyed a good life while working with asbestos products why not die from it. There’s got to be some cause[,]” was unfairly prejudicial and the trial court erred by refusing to redact that portion.

Second, the appellate court mentioned that the Florida Supreme Court in Fabre v. Marin, stated that “the legislature intended that damages be apportioned among all participants to the accident” and that “the only means of determining a party’s percentage of fault is to compare that all of the other entities who contributed to the accident, regardless of whether they could have been joined as defendants.” Because Honeywell pleaded the fault of non-parties and presented sufficient evidence regarding two non-parties, the appellate court found that Honeywell satisfied Fabre, and was entitled to have those non-parties listed on the verdict form for apportionment of liability.

Next, the appellate court addressed the award of parental consortium damages. By statute, Florida provides for loss of parental consortium for “acts of negligence occurring on or after” the statute’s effective date of October 1, 1988. The appellate court held that the negligent act was Guilder’s last known exposure to asbestos which occurred in 1982. Because those acts were before the effective date of the parental consortium statute, the appellate court found that the loss of consortium damage award was improper.

Finally, the appellate court addressed whether Honeywell was entitled to an set-off for $2,820,000 in settlements the plaintiffs received. The appellate court held that the trial court erred by failing to set-off the settlement proceeds from the verdict before entering final judgment.

The appellate court reversed the final judgment and remanded for a new trial.  Honeywell International, Inc. v. Guilder.

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Yesterday, the Texas Silica MDL Court granted a defendant’s no evidence summary judgment motion in a case in which the plaintiff alleged that pipes specified by the defendant to be sandblasted offsite and thereafter installed on its premises were either defective products or somehow an extension of the defendant’s premises over which it retained and exercised control. Plaintiff had sandblasted the pipes but had never actually worked at defendant’s facility. He was subsequently diagnosed with silicosis and “silica related lupus”.

Plaintiff claimed that the defendant’s specifications for a particular surface finish on the pipes, which plaintiff argued could only be achieved by using high silica containing flint or other abrasive, meant that the defendant exercised enough control over the manner of plaintiff’s work that it could be held liable for his injury. The defendant argued that there was no legal duty to the plaintiff and that there was no control that would give rise to Chapter 95 liability.

The Texas MDL court rejected plaintiff’s attempt to use premise liability theories to maintain product liability or negligence claims when there was no product created, manufactured or sold by the defendant and none of the acts allegedly responsible for his injuries occurred on the defendant’s premises. Plaintiff had admitted that there was no Texas case law to support his theory.
 

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Forty years ago Clarence Borel, dying of mesothelioma, filed his landmark claim against the leading manufacturers of asbestos products.  Borel prevailed at trial and when the defendants appealed his $75,000 judgment saying he couldn't prove which defendant was responsible the 5th Circuit open the floodgates of mass toxic tort litigation by holding:  

“[I]t is impossible …to determine with absolute certainty which particular exposure to asbestos dust resulted in injury...” “[E]ach exposure may result in an additional and separate injury…. therefore … the jury could find that each defendant was the cause in fact of some injury…”

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Hurricane Katrina came and went but the landowners class action claims for damages caused by oil companies' greenhouse gases are still standing. On October 16, 2009, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Comer v. Murphy Oil held that plaintiff landowners had standing to assert causes of action for negligence, private and public nuisance, and trespass against oil companies for their release of greenhouse gases, which caused rising sea levels and increased the ferocity of Hurricane Katrina. In reversing the district court's dismissal of the property damage claims, the court ruled that plaintiffs’ Mississippi tort common law claims met the state’s liberal standing requirements, but also the federal standing requirements because their alleged injury could be traced to defendants’ greenhouse gas contributions. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Massachusetts v. EPA played a critical role in the court’s analysis of the standing issue. The court also held that these claims did not present nonjusticiable political questions. While the standing issue is the beginning and not the end of how much liability, if any, the oil companies have for damages resulting from greenhouse gases in this case. This decision may signal the beginning of the expansion of liability for damages directly, or indirectly, related to a person, company or industry’s contributions of greenhouse gases.

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The oral argument in Rosemary Smith, et al v. Kelly-Moore Paint Company that took place October 15, 2009 before the Second Court of Appeals can be heard here.  The plaintiff appellant is asking the appellate court to hold that Borg-Warner v. Flores does not apply in a mesothelioma case because, they claim, there is "no safe level" for exposure to asbestos and because even minute exposures have been declared to be causative.  Accordingly they ask that in mesothelioma cases plaintiffs be excused from having to demonstrate quantatively the dose given by any particular defendants' product, premise, etc.

We’ll let you know when Second Court of Appeals reaches its decision.
 

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In Merrill v. Leslie Control, Inc., a California appellate court reversed and set aside a verdict in favor of plaintiffs and held that a defendant “owed no duty to warn against dangers in products, used in association with or as replacement parts of its valves, which it did not manufacture or supply.”

Richard Merrill filed suit for his mesothelioma that was allegedly caused by exposed to asbestos during his service in the Navy. The jury found that Leslie Controls valves were defective because it failed to warn of potential risks, the valves were defectively designed, and Leslie Controls was negligent.

Merrill had worked on Leslie Control valves that were used on ships on which he served. The valves had asbestos-containing internal gaskets which Leslie Controls did not manufacture. Leslie Controls instructed purchasers of its valves to insulate around its valves but it did not provide insulation and its field engineers were aware that asbestos insulation was applied to and removed from its valves and were even present when it was done. Leslie Controls also provided manuals for their valves and was aware that packing would be removed or added during maintenance and the manuals contained no warning of the dangers of asbestos.

The appellate court found that there was no evidence that Leslie Controls manufactured or supplied any asbestos-containing internal packing and gaskets to which Merrill was exposed, it did not manufacture or supply gaskets attached to the exterior of its valves, and it did not supply or manufacture asbestos-containing insulation used around the valves. Thus the appellate court held that Leslie Controls was not liable in strict liability “for failing to warn of hazards associated with the handling of these products.”

The Court stated that a manufacturer’s duty to warn is limited to its own products. The court also rejected liability premised on the component parts doctrine because Merrill could not provide evidence he removed the old internal packing that had been supplied by Leslie Controls in the valves.

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In a decision significant for its discussion of Texas’ Chapter 95 premises liability scheme the 1st Court of Appeals today reversed a $4+ million judgment against Union Carbide and Hexion arising out of a mesothelioma case tried to verdict in Galveston and rendered a take nothing judgment in favor of both defendants.

Essentially the court held that there was no evidence of control sufficient to support a verdict against Union Carbide. Providing asbestos-containing gaskets to the plaintiff contractor was not control – especially as any asbestos exposure arose out of the manner in which he used them rather than any intrinsic property. Specifying asbestos-containing insulation be applied by other contractors was not control, employing other contractors who stirred up dust was not control and requiring and holding mandatory safety meetings for plaintiff’s supervisors was not control.

Interestingly however, on page 9 at footnote 7, the court spends considerable time discussing a jury question the plaintiff didn’t request that would have led to a jury considering whether a premises owner exercised control over some other contractor, such as an insulator, which in turn led to the plaintiff’s exposure. There’s clearly a hint here that the court doesn’t think the control inquiry is limited to whether premises owner exercised control over the manner in which plaintiff did his work but extends to whether the premises owner controlled the manner of the work of some other contractor who in turn injured the plaintiff. But the plaintiff didn’t ask for the question so too bad.

Regarding the claims against Hexion, the plaintiff’s employer, they appear not to have been the usual Article 16 Section 26 workers’ comp avoiding effort we typically see in Texas. Instead the plaintiffs appear to have latched on to the idea that Hexion was not actually the plaintiff’s employer during that period of time during which plaintiff worked for Hexion’s predecessor so that the comp act’s bar to common law claims against employers for on the job injuries wouldn’t apply. The court basically held that public policy argued for an expansive view of worker’s comp coverage. The plaintiff made a last ditch plea to have the court adopt the “dual persona” doctrine, which would have separated Hexion into with and without coverage entities. Noting that no Texas court has ever done so as a means for imposing liability on a covered employer otherwise immune to suit the court declined the invitation.

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Private lawsuits to advance changes being sought by the executive branch? Undoubtedly the plaintiff bar is saying "Yes we can!"

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Williams Kherkher has filed their brief in Bailess v. Kaiser Gysum Company, Inc., et al. on appeal from the MDL court's granting of a summary judgment against their mesothelioma client.  According to the brief at the hearing on the motion for summary judgment the court stated that its ruling would be determined as follows:

This motion is going to be decided straight up on what Borg-Warner says and what Borg-Warner requires... If Borg-Warner requires that the dose from each defendant be enough by itself to be the substantial contributing factor, the motion must be granted.  If Borg-Warner does not require that, then the motion must be denied...

Having granted summary judgment the MDL court apparently settled on the former rather than the latter intrepretation of Borg-Warner.  In my opinion the premise doesn't reflect the true meaning of Borg-Warner.

Texas case law has refined and melded concepts of causality and culpability into a coherent and flexible scheme for determining whether or not liability ought to be imposed for the adverse consequences (negative externalities) of our actions. Essentially, a substantial contributing factor is a "but for" cause resulting from a risk imposed that was more than de minimis. The word "substantial" in "substantial contributing factor" relates, I think, to risk since any candidate cause must we know from Ford v. Ledesma be a "but for" cause and thus no more or less important than any other "but for" cause since without it, or any other such cause, the plaintiff would not have been injured.

The Bailess ruling then appears to impose a requirement that any candidate cause must be shown by plaintiff to be a sufficient cause - in other words, a cause which in and of itself, and without resort to other causes, would have brought about the plaintiff's injury. If so, this change would mark a dramatic shift in our law since in toxic tort cases, as well as in just about any other non-intentional tort case, plaintiff has always been able to recover despite the fact that her injury would not have occurred but for the actions of each of two or more tortfeasors; tortfeasors whose actions were necessary causes but not sufficient causes.  For a good discussion of the difference between sufficient cause and component "but for" causes which collectively produced the injury, see:  www.defendingscience.org/upload/Rothman-Greenland.pdf

I don't think that's where Texas case law is heading.  The question raised by Borg-Warner in a mesothelioma case is not "was defendant's asbestos a cause and if so how big a cause was it" but rather "was the exposure (i.e. the risk) from defendant's product substantial"? In other words, was the risk imposed by defendant's conduct so substantial that it can justly form the basis for liability assuming that it can never be determined which fiber or groups of fibers actually caused the plaintiff's cancer?

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In Bennett et al. v. Reynolds, No. 08-0074, Tex. 2009.  (Opinion of Court of Appeals, 242 S.W.3d 866), a wonderful only-in-Texas cattle rustling claim, the Texas Supreme Court has granted  defendant's/appellant's petition for review.  While actual damages awarded were only $5,327.11  the punitive damages came to $1,250,000.00.  Among the four issues the court will consider, mass tort lawyers will be most interested in the first two:

1. Was the evidence of malice legally insufficient to warrant punitive damages when the cattle
raiser merely sold some cattle that were not his, but did not cause or threaten “death, grievous
physical injury, or financial ruin”?

2. Is the $1.25 million punitive damages award—which is 235 times the compensatory damages
awarded—within the limits allowed by constitutional due process?

Stay tuned as this case has been set for oral argument on December 15, 2009.

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If an analysis of the most recent list of Google Adsense's highest paying search terms as compiled by CyberWyre is any indication of what the future holds, and where the money is, then I'm guessing it has something to do with mesothelioma.  The top two highest paying search terms are "mesothelioma treatment options" at $69.10/click and "mesothelioma risk" at $66.46/click.

Of the top twenty-five highest paying search terms, eighteen contain the word mesothelioma.   A number of the most expensive search phrases related to mesothelioma also contain words like "treatment", "doctor", "prognosis", "chemotherapy" and "cure".  An unscientific sampling of the results of such searches appears to generate far more links to lawyers than to physicians.  Go figure.

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