Contact: Charles Kerr or Don Rushing
Morrison & Foerster has extensive product liability experience. The firm has served as trial and national coordinating counsel
for hundreds of companies in product liability and toxic tort cases, including numerous large class actions, multi-party serial
tort litigation, and mass tort litigation.
The firm has handled and tried product cases in a wide variety of industries involving claims of manufacturing defect, design
defect, and failure to warn. The firm has also handled and tried cases involving alleged exposures to toxic substances.
In addition, the firm has defended tort, statutory, and other consumer claims (including various class actions) arising out
of consumer products, industrial accidents, transportation accidents, and environmental releases.
Morrison & Foerster is often called upon to analyze complex product liability claims, develop product warnings and product
recall campaigns, and serve as national coordinating counsel for leading manufacturers across the country.
Morrison & Foerster has represented and counseled companies regarding product stewardship and liability in a wide range of
industries, including consumer products, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, aerospace, automobile, food and wine, cosmetics
and industrial equipment manufacturers.
In addition, the firm has extensive experience under both federal and state law with a full range of industrial chemical issues,
including claims for personal injury, wrongful death, medical monitoring, fear of cancer, and property damage claims.
Representative Matters
Sankyo. The firm served as nationwide coordinating counsel for Sankyo in the Rezulin product liability litigation. As coordinating
counsel, Morrison & Foerster was responsible for devising and implementing Sankyo’s defense strategy in hundreds of claims
in state and federal court around the country. The firm has supervised the activities of a network of local counsel in state
court cases; coordinated efforts to consolidate cases in federal multi-district litigation (“MDL”) proceedings (or similar
state consolidation procedures, where they exist); prepared and responded to all discovery requests; conducted all necessary
document collection, organization, and production procedures; identified, prepared, and defended witnesses; and supervised
all other aspects of pretrial discovery and trial preparation.
3M Corporation. The firm was retained by 3M Corporation from 1995 to 1998 to defend it in breast implant litigation. Along with a team of
other law firms, Morrison & Foerster participated in the preparation and coordination at a national and regional level of
3M’s defense of a nationwide class action venued in federal court in Alabama and hundreds of opt out cases throughout the
United States. In this capacity, Morrison & Foerster was responsible for the preparation of over 100 individual opt out cases
for trial. Trial preparation included extensive work with experts to defend a range of scientific and technical issues relating
to liability and damages issues. Morrison & Foerster attorneys acted as lead trial counsel in the only individual trial against
3M in the federal MDL action in Alabama (which settled on favorable terms on the eve of trial) and successfully tried cases
in New Mexico and California. In addition, in Dinerman v. 3M, Morrison & Foerster obtained the first order excluding a medical expert’s causation opinion for lack of a scientific basis
in breast implant litigation in the state of California, resulting in a nonsuit.
In Re: Air Crash Off Point Magu, California, on January 31, 2000. This multi-district litigation matter involved wrongful death and survival claims by heirs and estates of the 88 passengers
and crew who perished in the crash of Alaska Airlines Flight 261 on January 31, 2000 near Point Mugu, California. We represented
Alaska Airlines as lead trial counsel. Intensive fact and expert discovery led to a series of successful motions to remove
punitive damages from the case, limit theories of recovery against the airline under the Warsaw Convention, stipulate to liability
to remove potentially harmful evidence from the trials, and prepare and try damages claims. Trial commenced in the MDL Court,
the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, in 2003 leading to settlements during trial of all
but one of the remaining cases. After remand to the Central District of California and transfer back to the Northern District
of California for trial, the remaining case settled.
Carver, et al. v. Uniroyal, Inc. This series of cases were tried to a jury over a two-month period in the San Diego Superior Court. These product liability
cases involved a complex set of facts arising out of a single vehicle accident in the Carlsbad, California, area in which
the occupants of a pickup truck were seriously injured (one death, one quadriplegic, two other serious injuries) when the
right rear tire lost tread, the driver lost control of the vehicle, the truck struck the center divider, and the occupants
of the bed of the pickup were thrown over the center divider into oncoming traffic. The case was bifurcated on liability and
damages with all four consolidated cases being tried together on the issue of liability. The jury made a finding of liability
after a 30-day trial. The case then proceeded to a complete trial of each of the four cases on the issue of damages, resulting
in low awards to each of the plaintiffs. The case was successfully appealed on liability, and a subsequent favorable settlement
resulted.
Product Recall Matters. The firm represented a major Japanese product manufacturer in the worldwide recall of an allegedly defective thermostat
used in industrial furnaces. We assisted the client in structuring and managing the recall program, identifying and tracing
the products at issue, including developing external communications with vendors and customers, designing the financial and
logistical procedures for the recall, and working with counsel in Europe, Africa. and South America.
Diesel Engine Manufacturers. An environmental group, Coalition for Clean Air, sued manufacturers of diesel truck engines, alleging that they were responsible
for exposing pedestrians, employees, and others to carcinogens in the absence of warnings. We represented eight of the nine
defendants. We first obtained a determination from the AG’s office that the manufacturers were not responsible for issuing
warnings. When this did not deter the plaintiffs, we litigated the case. We obtained summary judgment for our clients—the
first ever defense judgment issued in a product failure to warn case of this type.
