Opinion ID: 2165775
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Product identification

Text: Zafft was one of a number of similar lawsuits across the country stemming from claims that diethylstilbestrol (DES) taken during pregnancy caused cancer in female offspring. The plaintiffs in Zafft sued various manufacturers and distributors of DES, claiming that it was defective and seeking to hold the defendants responsible on theories of strict liability for failing to adequately warn about or test the drug. The plaintiffs claimed that the defendants represented all the known makers, sellers or distributors of DES in Missouri at the relevant time. The plaintiffs, however, were unable to identify which defendant made or sold the particular product their mothers had ingested. The drug had been marketed generically by as many as 300 different companies, andthrough no fault of the plaintiffsit was impossible to match a specific dosage with an individual manufacturer. The plaintiffs contended that justice required that they be able to pursue some type of alternative theory of liability with a more relaxed standard of causation or none at all. Zafft at 243-44. Before addressing the plaintiffs' proposed theories, this Court noted that under strict liability, as with any other tort theory, plaintiff must establish some causal relationship between the defendant and the injury-producing agent. Id. The Court then rejected each proposed theory, including market-share liability. Id. at 244-46. Under a market-share approach to liability, the plaintiff must join enough defendants to constitute a substantial share of the market and then the burden shifts to each defendant to exonerate itself or join the responsible parties not named by plaintiffs. This Court concluded that market-share liability is unfair, unworkable, and contrary to Missouri law, as well as unsound public policy. Id. at 246. Among other problems, market-share liability continues the risk that the actual wrongdoer is not among the named defendants, and exposes those joined to liability greater than their responsibility. Id. The Court recognized that the plaintiffs were innocent and claimed serious injuries, but simply to state, as have courts ruling in favor of plaintiffs, that as between an innocent plaintiff and negligent defendants, the latter should bear the cost of the injury and that defendants can better absorb this cost, ignores strong countervailing considerations. Id. This Court concludes that the theories advanced by plaintiffs do not persuade the Court to abandon the Missouri tort law which requires that they establish a causal relationship between the defendants and the injury-producing agent as a precondition to maintenance of their causes of action. Strict liability in tort continues to provide a remedy to those plaintiffs who satisfy the identification requirement. Zafft at 247. Under Zafft , where the plaintiff seeks to hold the defendants liable on the basis that their products caused harm to the plaintiff, the identification requirement must be satisfied. Without product identification, the city can do no more than show that the defendants' lead paint may have been present in the properties where the city claims to have incurred abatement costs. That risks exposing these defendants to liability greater than their responsibility and may allow the actual wrongdoer to escape liability entirely. Even assuming that the city could provevia marketing evidence or something else short of product identification that a particular defendant held a certain share of the lead paint market in the city at the relevant time or even if it could prove that because of that defendant's market share there was a statistical probability that its paint was in a certain percentage of the properties at issuethat would not establish that the particular defendant actually caused the problem. Absent product identification evidence, the city simply cannot prove actual causation.