| Fast Food Litigation |
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| Is a double cheeseburger a defective product? A number of tort lawyers and their clients believe so. In July 2002, a class action suit was brought on behalf of patrons of McDonald's, Wendy's Burger King, and KFC. The suit alleged that the fast food companies negligently, recklessly, or intentionally manufactured and marketed foods that caused adverse health effects such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. The lead plaintiff in the case was a 56 year old, 270 pound man, but the class was vaguely defined as those who have consumed products manufactured and sold by the defendants who have become obese, overweight, developed diabetes, coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol levels, and/or other detrimental health effects. A federal judge in New York dismissed the case, but that has not spelled the end of suits against purveyors of fast food. More... |
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| Product Liability Reform Legislation |
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| Product liability laws were created to protect consumers from unreasonably dangerous and unsafe products. The strict liability, or no-fault, standard used in product liability actions imposes liability on manufacturers and sellers without any evidence of fault. This standard benefits consumers because it encourages manufacturers to take caution in designing and manufacturing products and encourages sellers to take caution in deciding what to sell.
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| Product Liability Law and the Reasonable Design Alternative Test |
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| In many product liability cases, the plaintiff alleges that a design defect was responsible for the injuries incurred. For example, in a product liability case alleging that a car's gas tank exploded in rear-end collisions, the plaintiff would allege that the car was defectively designed. In these types of cases, some courts have established a "reasonable design alternative" test. Under this test, a product is defective in design when the foreseeable risks of harm posed by the product could have been reduced or avoided by the adoption of a reasonable alternative design by the seller or other distributor and the omission of the alternative design renders the product not reasonably safe.
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| Intermediaries' Liability for Distributing Drugs and Medical Devices |
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| As a general rule, intermediaries (retailers, distributors, or wholesalers involved in distributing drugs and medical devices) have the same liability for a drug or medical device as the drug company that manufactured the product. Intermediaries that merely distribute the product can generally avoid liability, but distributors whose only activity involved unwrapping and rewrapping the products for sale to the retailer have been held liable. Some states have laws that prevent non-manufacturers from being held liable for injuries caused by defective products.
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| DES Litigation |
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| DES (diethylstilbestrol) was prescribed for pregnant women during the 1950s and 1960s to help prevent miscarriages and premature deliveries. Research performed in 1958 concluded that DES did not help to prevent miscarriages or premature births. Nevertheless, physicians continued to prescribe the drug. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an estimated 5 to 10 million people in the United States alone were exposed to DES from 1938 to 1971. This includes pregnant women and their children. A 1971 study indicated that DES was a cause of a rare vaginal cancer in girls and young women who had been exposed to DES before birth. As a result of this study, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration advised physicians in 1971 to stop prescribing DES. Nevertheless, the damage had been done. More... |
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