Trying a toxic tort case is unlike other high-stakes litigation. This guide explores the legal elements that distinguish toxic tort litigation, explaining theories of liability and damages as well as procedural and substantive defenses. Chapters cover scientific and medical evidence, causation, trial management and strategy, settlement, and specialized litigation, including mold, lead, asbestos, silica, food products, pharmaceuticals, and MTBE.

Since the issue first arose in earnest in the 1970s, courts have struggled to create rules for causation in toxic tort cases that are both consistent with longstanding tort principles and fair to all parties. Faced with conflicting and often novel expert testimony, scientific uncertainty, the gap between legal and scientific culture, and unprecedented claims for massive damages, common-law courts needed time to adjust and accommodate themselves to the brave new world of toxic tort litigation. Eventually, however, courts around the country reached a broad consensus on what is required for a toxic tort plaintiff to meet his or her burden of proof. While there is a voluminous scholarly literature on various aspects of toxic tort litigation, this Article's unique contribution is to articulate the new consensus on causation standards, document and criticize the various ways plaintiffs attempt to evade these standards, and defend the courts' adherence to traditional notions of causation against their critics. Part I of this Article explains that to prove causation in a toxic tort case, a plaintiff must show that the substance in question is capable, in general, of causing the injury alleged, and also that exposure to the substance more likely than not caused his injury. When a plaintiff was exposed to a single toxin from multiple sources, to prove causation by a specific defendant the plaintiff must show that the actions of that defendant were a “substantial factor” in causing the alleged harm. Part II discusses plaintiffs' attempts to evade these standards by hiring experts to present various types of unreliable causation evidence. Examples of such evidence include testimony based on high-dose animal studies, anecdotal case reports, analogizing from the known effects of “similar” chemicals, preliminary epidemiological studies that have not been peer-reviewed, and differential etiologies used to “rule in” an otherwise unknown causal relationship. Additionally, when multiple defendants have contributed to the plaintiffs' exposure to a potentially toxic substance, plaintiffs often present experts who claim, with no reliable scientific grounding, that the level of exposure (“dose”) is irrelevant to causation. Part III of this Article argues that courts should be steadfast in requiring toxic tort plaintiffs to meet their burden of proof. Traditional tort principles require that plaintiffs bear the burden of proving actual causation by a preponderance of the evidence, not merely that they were exposed to a risk. To hold otherwise and essentially shift the burden to defendants to disprove causation would open the floodgates to all manner of speculative claims, with potentially devastating consequences for Americans' well-being. Similarly, with regard to cases in which a plaintiff alleges injury after exposure to a toxin from multiple sources, a given defendant may only be held liable if the plaintiff proves by a preponderance of the evidence that exposure to that defendant's products was a “substantial factor” in causing that injury. To hold otherwise would amount to an implicit adoption of a system of broad, collective liability that courts have rejected when the issue has been raised explicitly. This section concludes by discussing the negative consequences that arise from speculative toxic tort litigation unsupported by reliable scientific evidence.

This work contains articles on the sufficiency of evidence, expert witness testimony, remedies and damages, policy legislation, and the roles of toxicology, epidemiology and biostatistics.

Trying a toxic tort case is very different from other high-stakes litigation. This practice-focused guide explores the specific and often unique elements that distinguish this type of litigation, including the differing theories of liability and damages and the key procedural and substantive defenses to toxic tort claims. Other topics include scientific and medical evidence and causation, case strategy, trial management, settlement considerations, and causation standards that apply in four regions of the country, reviewing the standards that apply in every state.

This book takes an original and comparative approach to issues of causation in tort law across many European legal systems.

Toxic Torts Deskbook is a concise, readable text covering the fastest-growing area of tort and personal injury litigation.Toxic tort suits involve claims arising from exposure to products ranging from pesticides to industrial solvents, manufacturing waste, and asbestos and present unique questions regarding causation, degree of hazard, and expert testimony.Written for environmental professionals as well as attorneys, Toxic Torts Deskbook describes the principal causes of suits for negligence, nuisance, trespass, warranty, strict tort liability, and liability for abnormally dangerous activities. For environmental, product, and workplace injuries from toxic exposure, the book discusses the elements a claimant must plead and prove, as well as defenses, statutes of limitations for long latency harms, and limited immunity for government contractors. "Citizen suits" that individuals may bring to vindicate rights granted by state or federal environmental statutes and insurance coverage issues, including the metes and bounds of the "pollution exclusion", are also covered.