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Suing The Tobacco And Lead Pigment Industries: Government Litigation As Public Health Prescription, Donald G. Gifford
Suing The Tobacco And Lead Pigment Industries: Government Litigation As Public Health Prescription, Donald G. Gifford
Donald G Gifford
In Suing the Tobacco and Lead Pigment Industries, legal scholar Donald G. Gifford recounts the transformation of tort litigation in response to the challenge posed by victims of 21st-century public health crises who seek compensation from the product manufacturers. Class action litigation promised a strategy for documenting collective harm, but an increasingly conservative judicial and political climate limited this strategy. Then, in 1995, Mississippi attorney general Mike Moore initiated a parens patriae action on behalf of the state against cigarette manufacturers. Forty-five other states soon filed public product liability actions, seeking both compensation for the funds spent on public health …
The Death Of Causation: Mass Products Torts' Incomplete Incorporation Of Social Welfare Principles, Donald G. Gifford
The Death Of Causation: Mass Products Torts' Incomplete Incorporation Of Social Welfare Principles, Donald G. Gifford
Donald G Gifford
Legal actions against the manufacturers of disease-causing products, such as cigarettes and asbestos insulation, have redefined the landscape of tort liability during the past generation. These actions bedevil courts, because any particular victim often is unable to identify the manufacturer whose product caused her harm. Increasingly, but inconsistently, courts allow victims to recover without proof of individualized causation. This article argues that instrumental approaches seek to turn mass products tort law into the equivalent of a social welfare program, not unlike workers’ compensation or Social Security. As with any such program, the accident compensation system must include compensation entitlement boundaries, …