Top Product Liability Cases Of 2019: Midyear Review

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Publish Date:
June 21, 2019
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Law360
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Summary

So far this year, Monsanto has been hit with more than $2 billion in damages over claims that it failed to warn of the cancer risks of its popular Roundup weedkiller. Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court has clarified the “clear-evidence” standard for failure-to-warn cases, while Connecticut’s top court put a dent in the federal law protecting gunmakers from liability when firearms are used in crimes.

Here, Law360 recaps the most significant product liability cases of the first half of 2019.

The ruling is significant because it suggests that the PLCCA, first enacted in 2005, is formidable but not necessarily impregnable, said professor Nora Freeman Engstrom of Stanford Law School, who co-authored an amicus brief in the case.

“For a long time, conventional wisdom has been that PLCAA all but immunizes gun manufacturers from liability,” Engstrom said. “Yet Soto reveals a crack in the facade. The size, significance and permanence of that fissure, however, remains to be seen.”

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