Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Air & Liquid Systems Corp., et al. v. Devries, 139 S. Ct. 986 (2019), a maritime tort law case in which plaintiffs alleged that asbestos exposure during their Navy service caused them to develop cancer. The Supreme Court held that, in the maritime context, a manufacturer has a duty to warn not only of the manufacturer’s own products, but also of third-party products that are later added to the manufacturer’s product.
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Most lawyers begin learning about torts by reading the Palsgraf case. Palsgraf established the principle of foreseeability as the basis for imposing a duty. But are the principles from Palsgraf still relevant today?
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Long-anticipated changes to California’s Proposition 65 warning requirements took effect on August 30, 2018, through amendments and new rules issued by the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment. Among other changes, the new rules now (1) require businesses to provide California consumers with product warnings at the time of purchase, including at the time of online purchases; and (2) change the text of the warnings that businesses may use to qualify for “safe harbor” protections. The new warning requirements apply only to products manufactured after August 30, 2018.
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The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued a final rule in October prohibiting the manufacture for sale, offer for sale, distribution in commerce, or importation of toys and child care products containing more than 0.1 percent of five phthalate chemicals. Phthalates make plastics soft and pliable, and are contained in many toys and other products intended for young children. The rule will take effect on April 25, 2018.
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For the past several months, Monsanto has been in court challenging California’s decision to add the chemical glyphosate—the active ingredient in its herbicide Roundup—to the Proposition 65 list. It recently faced a setback when the California Supreme Court rejected Monsanto’s request to stay a lower court’s decision to include glyphosate among the 960 chemicals on the list. California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) wasted no time after the decision and added glyphosate to the list on July 7, 2017.
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We’ve been following a series of cases filed against Johnson & Johnson by plaintiffs alleging that using talc caused ovarian cancer.
Since 2009, over 2000 cases have been filed, mostly in Missouri, New Jersey, and California. Missouri has seen four trials: the first three resulted in plaintiffs’ verdicts, but the fourth and most recent resulted in a verdict for J&J.
Often in mass tort litigation, courts allow the parties to have a series of “bellwether trials” to show what is likely to happen in future trials. Rather than preparing to try all cases in a mass tort litigation, the parties can try fewer cases that involve the most contested issues. In Missouri, the bellwether trial plaintiffs are chosen by counsel, with each side taking a turn to select the next plaintiff.
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Monsanto has, at least temporarily, lost its fight to avoid a Prop 65 warning label on its products containing glyphosate, a chemical used in the popular herbicide Roundup. On January 27, 2017, a California judge tentatively dismissed Monsanto’s claims that the State of California unconstitutionally turned to an unelected, European organization to decide whether glyphosate posed a cancer risk.
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This past August, we wrote about potential legal challenges facing manufacturers and sellers of baby powder containing talc, a mineral that some argue may be linked to ovarian cancer. Today we look at some reasons why recent talc cases have had wildly different outcomes.
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On November 29, EPA announced that it will review the hazard and exposure risks caused by asbestos. Asbestos will be one of the first ten substances to be evaluated under the TSCA amendments commonly referred to as the Lautenberg Act. As we have discussed elsewhere, TSCA now requires EPA to produce a risk evaluation work plan for these substances by June 2017 and complete its evaluation within three years following. If EPA determines any of these substances pose unreasonable risks, then EPA must take further action to mitigate any risks.
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After considering them for more than a year, California’s Office of Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) has finally issued new “Safe Harbor” warning regulations for Proposition 65. The new regulations intend to provide consumers “more specificity” about the chemical content of products sold in California. They take effect on August 30, 2018 and are set forth in California Health and Safety Code sections 25600, et seq.
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