Law Commons^™

Causation And Apportionment Issues In Opioid Litigation, Richard C. Ausness

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In November 2019, an Oklahoma trial court judge, sitting without a jury, ruled that Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals were guilty of creating a public nuisance because their production and marketing of prescription opioid painkillers significantly contributed to the current opioid epidemic in the State of Oklahoma. The judge also held that Johnson & Johnson must contribute $65 million to pay for the State's program to abate this nuisance. Although the case has been appealed, it is significant because it was the first government sponsored opioid case to actually go to trial. Although there are many issues …

Conspiracy Theories: Is There A Place For Civil Conspiracy In Products Liability Litigation?, Richard C. Ausness

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

A civil conspiracy is a group of two or more persons acting together to achieve an unlawful objective or to achieve a lawful objective by unlawful or criminal means. During the past two decades, plaintiffs have brought numerous civil conspiracy claims against product manufacturers. The defendants in these cases have included manufacturers or producers of tobacco products, asbestos, pharmaceuticals, lead-based paint, multi-rim truck wheels, and gasoline additives. Surprisingly, less than half of the civil conspiracy claims have made it to trial. This unimpressive success rate suggests that courts are not very receptive to civil conspiracy claims even when there is …

Market Share Liability Beyond Des Cases: The Solution To The Causation Dilemma In Lead Paint Litigation?, Donald G. Gifford, Paolo Pasicolan

Faculty Scholarship

Over 300,000 young children in America—disproportionately poor and children of color—suffer from childhood lead poisoning. This disease ordinarily is caused by the deterioration of lead paint into flakes, chips, and dust that children ingest or inhale. Victims of childhood lead poisoning have tried to sue manufacturers of lead paint or lead pigment, but they face a seemingly insurmountable obstacle. Traditional tort law requires a plaintiff to prove that a specific tortfeasor caused the harm. This is almost impossible in the lead paint context because the paint that caused the harm usually consists of many layers, applied over the course of …

The Challenge To The Individual Causation Requirement In Mass Products Torts, Donald G. Gifford

Faculty Scholarship

This article uses the example of mass products torts to test the traditional principle that requires a specific victim to prove that a particular injurer caused her harm in order to establish tort liability. Proponents of the instrumentalist conception of torts, notably those identified with law and economics such as Calabresi and Posner, view any requirement of individualized causation as “old-fashioned” and inconsistent with their goals of achieving loss minimization and loss distribution or wealth maximization. In contrast, corrective justice theorists, such as Ernest Weinrib, argue that particularized causation is intrinsic to the entire notion of tort liability. The judicial …

The Peculiar Challenges Posed By Latent Diseases Resulting From Mass Products, Donald G. Gifford

Faculty Scholarship

Legal actions against manufacturers of products that cause latent diseases, such as asbestos products, cigarettes, lead-pigment, and Agent Orange, are the signature torts of our time. Yet within this rather important subset of tort liability, it is unlikely that the imposition of liability actually results in loss prevention. Three factors, present in varying combinations in the context of latent diseases resulting from product exposure, frustrate the deterrent impact of liability. First, an extended period of time—sometimes decades—passes between the time of the manufacturer’s distribution of the product and the imposition of liability. Second, the accident compensation system frequently is unable …

Tort Liability For The Sale Of Non-Defective Products: An Analysis And Critique Of The Concept Of Negligent Marketing, Richard C. Ausness

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Article will evaluate the concept of negligent marketing to see whether it ought to become a part of our legal jurisprudence or whether it should be discarded as doctrinally unsound, possibly harmful to important social and economic interests.

Part II of this Article provides an overview of the negligent marketing theory. Negligent marketing can be divided into three categories: (1) product designs that make the product more attractive to criminals; (2) advertising and promotional activities that target inappropriate users; and (3) product distribution practices that facilitate retail sales of dangerous products to vulnerable or unsuitable users. The first category …