|
|
Practices:
Product Liability and Mass Tort
Defending product liability and mass tort litigation can involve huge damage claims, can take years before ever coming to trial – and can threaten the future of any company. When plaintiffs target “deep pocket” defendants like healthcare product suppliers or municipal authorities, and their insurers, they often emphasize emotional arguments that run counter to sound science and good law.
Ungaretti & Harris knows how to prepare an effective defense tailored to your needs. No matter what the size and scope of the controversy you face, and no matter what the product or activity involved, our lawyers can give you the right strategy for trial or settlement. If you’re faced with damage claims alleging injury from design or manufacturing defects, failure to warn, product misuse or hazardous exposure, look to us to develop sound defense on scientific, technical and legal grounds.
Defense Focus
You have the assurance that we focus on product liability and mass tort defense, serving as national and regional counsel to technically sophisticated manufacturers, healthcare providers, other corporations and their insurers in claims throughout the United States. Whether you’re a Fortune 100 multinational corporation with hundreds of recurring cases or a small manufacturer with a single product at risk, you can be confident in our capability to defend you.
Technical Knowledge
Whatever your scientific or technical focus, our lawyers speak your language and understand your business. We have experience in such diverse applications as biochemistry, cardiology, forensic toxicology, liquid chromatography, mass spectrometry, microanalysis, mineralogy, neurology, pharmacology and serology. The key is to use a thorough understanding of the Daubert rules regarding expert testimony to protect you from pseudoscientific allegations and attack the claims of plaintiffs’ experts, while relying on the effective defense provided by our own network of expert witnesses to structure cases for summary judgment or settlement.
Litigation Strategy
At trial, we are fully capable of dealing with complex scientific, technical and multi-jurisdictional issues and work to resolve the matter in the way that works best for you. You get a comprehensive strategy encompassing these elements:
-
Rapidly assessing the merits of the case.
-
Aggressively seeking to dismiss the suit or restrict the plaintiffs' claims on legal grounds.
-
Realistically deciding whether settlement is preferable to a long and expensive trial.
-
Aggressively presenting a knowledgeable yet practical defense that humanizes your position and makes it understandable against plaintiffs’ emotional appeals.
Proactive Counsel
Your best product liability defense can be proactive, preventive action before a lawsuit occurs. We’ll work closely with you to perform risk assessments and liability policy audits to advise you on coverage if you’re sued, and to help augment your coverage in connection with mass tort and environmental claims. Using our knowledge of effective regulatory compliance with the Consumer Product Safety Commission and other federal agencies, we’ll also advise you on such measures as advisory filings on litigation results, voluntary product recalls, and effective product warning labels.
Product Liability
If you face complex multidistrict product liability litigation, you can draw on the experience we developed handling more than 800 defective design and failure to warn claims involving latex gloves manufactured by a leading global health products and services provider. After originally serving as one of six regional defense counsel, our success and effectiveness led to:
-
Appointment as one of only two national defense counsel.
-
Successful defense of a five-week federal jury trial that was the first trial out of approximately 2,000 in multi-district litigation.
-
Resolution of many remaining claims through negotiation and settlement.
-
This same combination of trial and negotiation skills, case management expertise and technical knowledge can be applied to product liability.
Mass Torts
If you have a problem involving loss from environmental pollution or alleged hazardous substances or products, you need the kind of toxic tort representation we can provide. Our lawyers have handled highly complex cases (one of them aggregating more than 10,000 separate claims) for defendants and plaintiffs, including claims over exposure to:
Some examples of our depth of experience include:
-
A high profile role in resolving a mass action by 10,000 current or former residents of the Chicago Housing Authority’s Altgeld Gardens Housing Project, alleging health problems such as asthma and cancer from PCB exposure. Our use of written discovery and deposition by written question resulted in dismissal of 6,500 claims for non-compliance. We also used motion practice to dismiss injuries not linked to PCBs by a medical study, bar certain plaintiff’s experts, and isolate one plaintiff as a test case (in which the court declared a mistrial). The mass action settled for 2% of the plaintiffs’ original demands, with no money paid directly to the plaintiffs.
-
Represented manufacturers of automotive and industrial equipment, some of whose products contained asbestos. The operations were originally part of a parent company no longer in existence, and the parent was originally covered by liability insurance that our clients believed was still in effect. The coverage dispute involved complex issues of assignment and successorship under the policies. Such issues go to the heart of many claims disputes, and we have the experience to litigate claims and coverage questions extending back over decades.
-
From resolving over 100 environmental claims in Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska for a major oil company, to settling 10,000 separate claims of alleged PCB exposure for just 2% of the plaintiffs’ original demands, the experience we’ve developed in mass tort claims enables us to develop the right approach for your defense.
Best Defense
Product liability and mass tort claims are bet the company litigation. Your best defense is to rely on an aggressive law firm that doesn’t require a learning curve to develop the right technical understanding and trial or negotiation strategy. With Ungaretti & Harris you’ll work with senior partners who have comprehensive experience in resolving hundreds of these disputes, and can use it to tailor a defense strategy focused on your needs.
|
|