Mass Tort and Product Liability

Kasowitz has one of the premier mass tort and product liability litigation practices, defending and prosecuting mass tort and product liability cases at the trial and appellate level in state and federal courts throughout the country.  The firm is national counsel for Fortune 500 and other large companies in tobacco, asbestos, silica, and other toxic tort actions.  In addition, the firm is national counsel in a wide variety of product liability actions, ranging from allegedly defective toys to allegedly defective plumbing systems.

Some of the high-profile mass tort and product liability actions handled by the firm’s attorneys include: 

• Cigarette manufacturer Liggett Group Inc. as national counsel in smoking and health litigation.  For 15 years, the firm has successfully defended Liggett at trial in class action, third-party payor and individual personal injury lawsuits allegedly arising from cigarette smoking, as well as litigation enforcing the terms of Liggett’s settlements with state and federal government.  In 2011, the firm won three defense verdicts on behalf of Liggett within several weeks of each other.  The firm also conceived, negotiated and implemented the first-ever settlement of smoking and health litigation, settling health care cost recovery actions brought by states' attorneys general against Liggett, leading to revolutionary changes in industry conduct, as well as extraordinary financial benefits for the company.  Liggett and its settlements were credited by, for example, United States District Court Judge Kessler for having "changed the face of tobacco litigation in this country and....distanc[ed] [Liggett] from the other Defendants." 
• Heidelberg USA, Inc., Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc., Emerson Electric Co., Celanese Corporation and other Fortune 500 companies as national, regional and local counsel in asbestos litigation pending throughout the country.  These trials have ranged from individual plaintiff cases to trials of groups of ten, 25 to 10,000 cases, and have occurred in jurisdictions as diverse as Texas, West Virginia, North Carolina, Virginia and Georgia.  Most recently, Kasowitz obtained a complete defense verdict for an asbestos premises liability client in a high-risk mesothelioma wrongful death case tried in state court in Richmond, Virginia.
• Celanese Corporation as national counsel in defense of toxic tort actions in New York, California and Minnesota filed by hundreds of current and former IBM and National Semiconductor employees, their spouses and their children concerning alleged exposure to solvents used in the semiconductor industry.  During the course of the litigation, the firm successfully obtained approximately 90 summary judgment dismissals, on various legal theories, which ultimately resulted in a favorable confidential settlement of all plaintiffs’ claims. 
• 3,500 Alabama Residents, in what The Washington Post described as a "huge victory in a landmark environmental lawsuit" against Monsanto Company and its successor Solutia. This massive case concerned decades of PCB pollution in the vicinity of a Monsanto plant in Anniston, Alabama.  After a 17-month jury trial in which the firm obtained $100 million in jury verdicts for a portion of the plaintiffs, the case ultimately settled with the firm’s clients receiving $170 million (after costs and fees).
• Motorola Corporation in defense of a putative class action alleging that Motorola's RAZR phone was sold with a defective battery.
• Mega Bloks, a manufacturer of several lines of children’s toys, in defense of actions throughout the country arising from children swallowing magnetic parts of the Magnetix product line. 
• Maremont Corporation as national counsel handling more than 75,000 asbestos personal injury actions nationwide since 2001.  The firm has represented Maremont in both state and federal court in some of the most challenging jurisdictions in the country.  Working closely with the client, the firm developed a cost-effective yet aggressive litigation strategy to reduce the pending case numbers (by more than 50,000) as well as the indemnity amounts paid.
• Varta Microbattery in defense of an action by a remote control manufacturer alleging that the company’s batteries caused remote control units to catch fire.
• Celanese Corporation, a large chemical manufacturer, in mass product liability litigation concerning allegedly defective polybutylene plumbing systems installed in millions of homes nationwide.  In the course of this representation, Kasowitz has successfully defended Celanese in more than 50 putative and certified nationwide, statewide and county-wide class actions, as well as in hundreds of individual actions throughout the country.  In addition, Kasowitz has defended Celanese in a number of jury trials in states around the country.
• Several hundred users of Vioxx in their litigation against Merck & Co.  The firm was instrumental in the nationwide settlement of claims.
• Armstrong World Industries in defense of a putative nationwide class of millions of residential and commercial property owners concerning property damage claims relating to floor tiling.  The firm successfully defeated the plaintiffs’ motion for class certification. 
• More than 1,300 Alabama coal miners suffering permanent respiratory injuries as a result of their exposure to isocyanate-based products used in the mines in their action against Dow, BASF and Bayer alleging failure to warn and an industry-wide conspiracy extending over several decades to conceal and misrepresent those hazards to the mine owners, the miners' union, government regulators and the miners themselves.  After a nine-day hearing, the firm successfully defeated defendants’ motions for summary judgment.  On the eve of trial, the case settled.
• The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in the five-week trial of a consolidated action concerning the Port Authority's liability for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, the first major terrorist attack on United States soil.  The hundreds of plaintiffs in the action consisted of representatives of estates of individuals killed in the attack, injured individuals, and World Trade Center tenants -- including several financial services firms -- that allegedly incurred business interruption damages as a consequence of the attack. 
• Celanese Corporation in defense of putative class actions and dozens of individual actions arising out of alleged releases of ethyl acrylate from rail cars in New Orleans, Louisiana.  The firm successfully defeated class certification, as well as dismissal of all of the putative class representatives’ claims, in what is historically an extremely pro-plaintiff jurisdiction. 
• Ticona Polymers in defense of numerous actions filed in Louisiana and Alabama by gasoline stations alleging that underground petroleum supply lines were defective.  The firm successfully moved to exclude the plaintiffs’ primary expert in one of the major actions, and continues to defend Ticona. 
• Southern Union Company in defense of individual and class action claims for personal injury and property damage arising from an alleged spill of mercury. 
• Celanese Corporation, a leading chemical manufacturer, in defense of claims for alleged personal injury and property remediation damages caused by exposure to toxic mold.  The firm successfully obtained summary judgment dismissing all claims against its client, which judgment was affirmed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. 
• Stryker Corporation, one of the world's largest manufacturers of joint replacement implants, in defense of a putative class action alleging that Stryker engaged in an illegal kickback scheme with doctors and surgeons where allegedly phony consulting fees were paid to induce the doctors to use Stryker knee and hip replacement products in surgeries.  The firm successfully obtained dismissal of the complaint on numerous grounds, including that the allegations failed to establish any compensable financial harm by purported class members.