Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Posts Tagged ‘product liability’

When does product liability reform improve economic well-being?

A new empirical study from Joanna Shepherd (Emory) in the Vanderbilt Law Review looks at the question (via Chris Robinette/TortsProf). Among the conclusions:

My empirical results indicate that several reforms that restrict the scope of products liability have a significant impact on economic activity. Statutes of repose that limit the time period for which manufacturers are liable for product defects, comparative negligence reforms that reduce damage awards when plaintiffs engage in negligent activity, and reforms that eliminate strict liability for nonmanufacturer product sellers are all associated with statistically significant increases in economic activity. Specifically, my results suggest that these reforms increase the number of businesses, employment, and production in the industries that bear most of the products liability claims: the manufacturing, retail, distribution, wholesale, and insurance industries.

In contrast, other reforms have a weak effect on economic activity. My results suggest that caps on noneconomic damages and reforms to the traditional collateral source rule are only weakly associated with increases in economic activity. Meanwhile, caps on punitive damages and reforms eliminating joint and several liability are weakly associated with decreases in certain measures of economic activity.

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Slow-cooking crockpots: there’s been a change

Megan McArdle, in her annual holiday guide to kitchen gadget buying:

If you don’t want quite this much capacity — if you’re cooking for one or two, and hate leftovers — then I recommend getting an older (pre-1990) crockpot off of eBay. In recent years, food safety regulations and fear of liability has caused manufacturers to raise the heat on their slow cookers, which means the food cooks faster. I entertain enough that I reluctantly gave up lower heat for larger capacity (old crockpots tend to come in 2-3 quart sizes, rather than the 5-6 quarts that are standard now.) But only an older crockpot will give you really low and slow cooking.

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Product liability roundup

  • “Judge in Asbestos Litigation Says Navy Ships Aren’t Products” [Legal Intelligencer]
  • NYT goes in search of the trial lawyers’ case on the Blitz gas can bankruptcy [earlier here, here]
  • Gun control lobby hails as “groundbreaking” NY appellate court allowing suit against gun manufacturer [WSJ Law Blog, NYLJ]
  • “Mechanical Bull Tosses Rider, Prevails in Court” [Abnormal Use]
  • Well-known expert witness pops up in consumer popcorn injury case [Drug and Device Law] 2004 Missouri workplace exposure case: “‘Popcorn Lung’ Couple Gets $20M Award, Files for Bankruptcy” [ABC News]
  • “Bumbo Baby Seat Recalled Because It Is Only 99.999475% Safe” [Skenazy, Agitator]
  • “Summary Judgment For Crocs in Massachusetts Escalator Injury Case” [Abnormal Use]

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Product liability roundup

  • “Oklahoma Court Tosses Jury Verdict Over ‘Defective’ Louisville Slugger” [Daniel Fisher/Forbes, Abnormal Use] “In contrast, a New Jersey case against the same defendant resulted in a multi-million-dollar settlement divorced from any showing of culpability.” [PoL]
  • An expert witness wore two hats [Chamber-backed Madison County Record]
  • 5-4 Washington Supreme Court decision in asbestos case bodes ill for makers of safety devices [Pacific Legal Foundation]
  • “Defective design and the Costa Concordia” [Rob Green, Abnormal Use; Rick Spilman, The Old Salt]
  • Calif. appeals court says man shot by 3 year old son can sue Glock [SFGate]
  • “Evidence of Drug Use May Be Relevant in Product Liability Litigation” [Farr, Abnormal Use]
  • “What used to be in chemistry sets that are not in there anymore are actual chemicals” [BBC, earlier here, here]

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Long-necked beer bottle maker not liable for barroom assault

A Texas appeals court has affirmed the dismissal of a lawsuit seeking to hold Anheuser-Busch liable for an assault suffered by a bar patron. The suit alleged that the long-neck design of the bottle made it too attractive for assailants seeking a weapon; the court agreed with the brewer that the plaintiff had failed to make out a sufficient case to avoid summary judgment. [Wajert, Mass Tort Defense]

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Torts roundup

  • “Targeting the red plastic gas can”: how product liability bankrupted Oklahoma manufacturer Blitz [editorial, earlier]
  • Summers v. Tice, the famous “which hunter shot him?” California tort case, re-examined [Kyle Graham, Green Bag/SSRN]
  • Paul Taylor of House Judiciary makes a case for the constitutionality of broad federal tort reform [Suffolk University Law Review via Point of Law]
  • New Ken Feinberg book on compensation plans in lieu of litigation [Scheuerman, TortsProf]
  • Hot propaganda: filmmaker Susan Saladoff faces off against Victor Schwartz on “Hot Coffee” [TortsProf]
  • Studies of tort reform’s effects underestimate effects of durable reforms by mixing them in with the many that are struck down by hostile courts [Martin Grace and Tyler Leverty, SSRN via Robinette, TortsProf]
  • Membership in AAJ, the trial lawyers’ lobby, said to be on the decline [Carter Wood, PoL]

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