In Short
The Situation: Courts are increasingly confronted with attempts by the plaintiffs' bar to repackage traditional product liability claims as public nuisance claims, as a ploy to circumvent various elements of product liability law.
The Result: Jones Day won a significant victory for Chevron in paraquat multidistrict litigation ("MDL"), convincing the MDL court to reject the public nuisance claims as disguised product liability claims.
Looking Ahead: After some outlier decisions expanding the scope of public nuisance liability beyond its traditional metes and bounds, there is an emerging trend of courts-across states and contexts-limiting nuisance liability to its traditional confines. From a public policy standpoint, this trend is encouraging.
Around the country, creative plaintiffs' lawyers have been repackaging product liability claims as public nuisance claims to avoid dismissal. Plaintiffs have used this maneuver to attempt an end-run on important product liability limitations, including requirements to show that a product is defective, a reasonable and available alternative design, and proximate causation of injury. Plaintiffs also try to avoid the product liability statutes of limitations or repose. While some outlier courts have allowed plaintiffs to repackage their product liability claims in this way, courts in recent high-profile litigation have explained...
