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Mass Tort & Class Actions
Many times, companies develop drugs, medical devices or products that turn out to be defective. Whether it be an SUV that has a proclivity to roll over, a mesh device that causes numerous internal damage, a drug that causes cancer, a weedkiller that causes cancer if not properly handled, the world has proven to be a dangerous place for the consumer. Unfortunately, history has shown that many companies fail to report adverse incidents to regulators or fail to warn the product users of known dangers. Some product manufacturers market products as completely safe, when nothing can be further from the truth. As we have learned time and time again, our regulators are not always properly protecting the public and numerous people die and suffer while big business profits all the while.
When this happens, we oftentimes get class actions and mass torts. While both class actions and mass torts usually involve thousands of injured individuals, class actions typically deal with the same type of economic injury to the victims. One case is litigated on behalf of all the individuals in the class action. In mass torts, typically the individuals injured by the product or device, suffer injuries that are personal to each of them. The injuries can range from small to serious, if not death. Those cases are typically handled by one Judge in one Court, but each case is dealt with one by one. The pretrial work is handled uniformly by the Judge and the lead attorneys from both sides. However, each of the cases has it’s own trial. The objective is for the Judge to try a handful of cases so that everyone can see the likely results. Settlement is then encouraged by the Court to cover all cases, or a large portion of them.
Episodes