Opinion ID: 1817529
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Market Share Theory of Liability

Text: The district court, in its opinion in Celotex, determined that Copeland alleged sufficient ultimate facts to be entitled to an opportunity to prove his allegations under the market share theory advanced in Sindell. The court noted that: (1) asbestosis results from cumulative exposure to asbestos dust and cancer attributable to asbestos may result from a single exposure; (2) manifestation of the diseases may not occur until many years after initial exposure; and (3) it is difficult, if not impossible, to determine which exposure is responsible for the disease. Accordingly, the district court held that under these circumstances the complaint sufficiently alleged a cumulative exposure injury as well as a cancer injury. 447 So.2d at 912-13. With regard to product identification, the district court noted that the complex nature of asbestos-related injuries made proof under traditional theories of causation extremely difficult and determined that the solution to this problem was the adoption of a modified version of the market share theory of liability. The market share theory of liability, as expressed in Sindell, is asserted to be a modified version of the alternative liability theory. Sindell involved the drug DES, which was sold between 1941 and 1971 as a miscarriage preventative. Although the drug was manufactured and marketed by hundreds of companies, it is important to note that it was produced pursuant to a single formula. The plaintiff in Sindell, a woman who developed malignant tumors as a result of her mother's ingestion of DES, brought suit against eleven drug companies for her injuries. The complaint alleged that the companies were in the business of producing and selling the drug which was administered to the plaintiff's mother; that DES may cause certain deadly diseases which manifest themselves after ten or twelve years; that the companies knew or should have known that DES was a carcinogen with varying periods of latency; and that the companies failed to adequately test the drug and warn of potential dangers. Further, the complaint alleged that the companies were jointly liable because they acted in concert, according to express and implied agreements, and in reliance upon each other's testing and marketing methods. 607 P.2d at 926, 163 Cal. Rptr. at 133-34. Although the plaintiff knew that her injuries were caused by DES, she was unable to identify the manufacturer of the specific product that had been ingested by her mother which caused her injury. In resolving this problem, the California Supreme Court noted that the passage of time between the ingestion of DES and the manifestation of its adverse effects, coupled with the fact that the manufacturers did not themselves dispense the drug to individual patients and, consequently, did not know who was prescribed their product, made identification of the actual tortfeasor impossible. Further, the court found that only a small percentage of the manufacturers of DES had been named in the suit, thereby rendering a strict application of the alternative liability theory inequitable. Accordingly, the Sindell court, in establishing the market share theory, required the plaintiff to join the manufacturers of a substantial share of the DES that the mother could have taken. The court concluded that once this appropriate market had been joined, each manufacturer would be liable for a proportion of the damages equal to its share of the market, unless it could prove that it did not produce the drug that caused the injury. The district court in the instant cause combined the market theory with the alternative theory of liability that is incorporated into section 433B(3) of the Restatement (Second) of Torts (1965). This theory of alternative liability applies when the actions of two or more tortfeasors combine to create an injury and it is impossible for the injured party to show which tortfeasor actually caused the injury. Once an injury is established, alternative liability places the burden of proof of apportionment of liability upon each of the tortfeasors, rather than upon the injured party. The theory is applicable, for example, where two tortfeasors fire weapons in the direction of the victim and the victim is injured by one bullet. The victim need only prove that he was injured and that the two tortfeasors fired in his direction. He need not prove which tortfeasor fired the bullet that actually caused his injury. Rather, the burden is upon each tortfeasor to establish that he did not fire the injurious projectile and, if neither tortfeasor can do so, the tortfeasors are held jointly and severally liable. See Summers v. Tice, 33 Cal.2d 80, 199 P.2d 1 (1948). The district court determined that the modified market share theory would equitably apportion liability in an asbestosis case and held that the modern rule with respect to market share liability in asbestosis case ... would more logically be reached via section 433B(2) of the Restatement (Second) of Torts (1965), which states as follows: Where the tortious conduct of two or more actors has combined to bring about harm to the plaintiff, and one or more of the actors seeks to limit his liability on the ground that the harm is capable of apportionment among them, the burden of proof as to the apportionment is upon each such actor. 447 So.2d at 916. The court further held that in an asbestosis case, each tortfeasor's liability would, just as under the section 433B(3) approach, be apportioned according to his percentage share of the total market. Id. Under the theory adopted by the district court, it is assumed that the cumulative exposure to products produced by more than one manufacturer resulted in the injury. When a plaintiff is unable to identify the specific manufacturer of the injurious substance, he may join all manufacturers of the products, and liability will then be apportioned according to each manufacturer's percentage share of the total market output of the injurious substance. An individual manufacturer may, however, refute liability by establishing that the plaintiff was not exposed to its product. The district court did not establish what would constitute a substantial market share and did not identify the boundaries of the relevant geographic market. It concluded that the complaint should not be dismissed for failure to identify the specific product that caused the injury. We find that the market share theory is an inappropriate vehicle with which to apportion liability for the asbestos-related injury in this cause. Our holding is based principally upon the fact that Copeland was able to identify many of the manufacturers of the products to which he was exposed. The market share theory of liability was developed to provide a remedy where there is an inherent inability to identify the manufacturer of the product that caused the injury. In the present case, Copeland expressly acknowledges that he can identify several of the products he utilized. Further, during depositions he identified a majority of the petitioners as having supplied the products to which he was exposed. We fully agree with the comments of Judge Nesbitt in his dissent in Celotex that where the plaintiff is able to identify at least one manufacturer who caused his injury, the reasons for imposing market share liability do not exist. 447 So.2d at 917. We also agree that this is an inappropriate case in which to determine whether Sindell should be adopted in Florida. Id. at 918. In addition, it is important to note there are inherent differences between asbestos products and the drug DES, for which the market share theory was developed, which further make the market share theory extremely difficult to apply in asbestos-injury cases. DES was produced by hundreds of companies pursuant to one formula. As a result, all DES had identical physical properties and chemical compositions and, consequently, all DES prescribed to pregnant women created the same risk of harm to the women's female offspring. See Sindell; see generally Phillips, Asbestos Litigation: The Test of the Tort System, 36 Ark.L.Rev. 344 (1983); Scott, Products Liability, 1982 Ann.Surv. of Am.L. 709, 709-720 (1982); Note, Market Share Liability: An Answer to the DES Causation Problem, 94 Harv.L.Rev. 668 (1981). Asbestos products, on the other hand, have widely divergent toxicities, with some asbestos products presenting a much greater risk of harm than others. See generally Locks, Asbestos-Related Disease Litigation: Can the Beast Be Tamed?, 28 Vill.L. Rev. 1184 (1982-83); Note, Issues in Asbestos Litigation, 34 Hastings L.J. 871, 889-95 (1983); Comment, An Examination of Recurring Issues in Asbestos Litigation, 46 Alb.L.Rev. 1307, 1325-29 (1982). This divergence is caused by a combination of factors, including: the specific type of asbestos fiber incorporated into the product; the physical properties of the product itself; and the percentage of asbestos used in the product. There are six different asbestos silicates used in industrial applications and each presents a distinct degree of toxicity in accordance with the shape and aerodynamics of the individual fibers. Further, it has been established that the geographical origin of the mineral can affect the substance's harmful effects. A product's toxicity is also related to whether the product is in the form of a solid block or a loosely packed insulating blanket and to the amount of dust a product generates. The product's form determines the ability of the asbestos fibers to become airborne and, hence, to be inhaled or ingested. The greater the product's susceptibility to produce airborne fibers, the greater the product's potential to produce disease. Finally, those products with high concentrations of asbestos fibers have corresponding high potentials for inducing asbestos-related injuries. We note that, if we were to adopt the market theory for asbestosis cases, this Court would have to determine what constitutes a substantial share of the market which would have to be joined in the cause of action. See Fischer, Products Liability  Analysis of Market Share Liability, 34 Van.L.Rev. 1623 (1981). This would require a determination of what companies produced the injurious products to which a party could have been exposed, when they produced the products, and where they were marketed. Further, as noted above, because the various asbestos products have different toxicities, the courts would have to determine how to apportion liability for the differing harmful effects of the different products. The majority of courts that have addressed this issue have recognized the inherent problems in the approach and have rejected the market share theory as a means of apportioning liability for injuries caused by toxic substances. Those courts have been reluctant to eliminate the traditional tort law requirement of establishing causation and have specifically rejected the application of the market share theory in asbestosis cases. See Thompson v. Johns-Manville Sales Corp., 714 F.2d 581 (5th Cir.1983), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 104 S.Ct. 1598, 80 L.Ed.2d 129 (1984) (asbestos); Burke v. Johns-Manville Corp., No. C-1-289 (S.D. Ohio Aug. 2, 1983) (asbestos); Hannon v. Waterman Steamship Corp., 567 F. Supp. 90 (E.D.La. 1983) (asbestos); In Re Related Asbestos Cases, 543 F. Supp. 1152 (N.D.Cal. 1982) (asbestos); Tidler v. Eli Lilly & Co., 95 F.R.D. 332 (D.D.C. 1982) (DES); Morton v. Abbott Laboratories, 538 F. Supp. 593 (M.D.Fla. 1982) (DES); Starling v. Seaboard Coast Line Railroad, 533 F. Supp. 183 (S.D.Ga. 1982) (asbestos); Prelick v. Johns-Manville Corp., 531 F. Supp. 96 (W.D.Pa. 1982) (asbestos); Mizell v. Eli Lilly & Co., 526 F. Supp. 589 (D.S.C. 1981) (DES); Ryan v. Eli Lilly & Co., 514 F. Supp. 1004 (D.S.C. 1981) (DES); Payton v. Abbott Labs, 386 Mass. 540, 437 N.E.2d 171 (1982) (DES); Zafft v. Eli Lilly & Co., 676 S.W.2d 241 (Mo. 1984) (DES). See also Pipon v. Burroughs-Wellcome Co., 532 F. Supp. 637 (D.N.J.), aff'd, 696 F.2d 984 (3d Cir.1982) (DES). See generally Special Report: An Analysis of the Legal, Social, and Political Issues Raised by Asbestos Litigation, 36 Vand.L.Rev. 573, 620-25 (1983) (hereinafter Special Report ); Comment, An Examination of Recurring Issues in Asbestos Litigation, 46 Alb.L.Rev. 1307, 1325-29 (1982); Comment, Market Share Liability for Defective Products: An Ill-Advised Remedy for the Problem of Identification, 76 Nw.U.L.Rev. 300 (1981); Comment, Market Share Theory and the Asbestos Suits: Should the Industry Bite the Dust?, 14 Stetson L.Rev. 239 (1984). But see Hardy v. Johns-Manville Sales Corp., 509 F. Supp. 1353 (E.D. Tex. 1981), rev'd on other grounds, 681 F.2d 334 (5th Cir.1982) (order allowing use of market share liability was subsequently vacated in Hardy v. Johns-Manville Sales Corp., No. M-79-145-CA (E.D.Tex. Sept. 24, 1982)); Ferrigno v. Eli Lilly & Co., 175 N.J. Super. 551, 420 A.2d 1305 (1980) (DES) (disagreed with by Namm v. Charles E. Frosst & Co., 178 N.J. Super. 19, 427 A.2d 1121 (1981)); Collins v. Eli Lilly & Co., 116 Wis.2d 166, 342 N.W.2d 37, cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 105 S.Ct. 107, 83 L.Ed.2d 51 (1984). While we recognize the clearly established majority view on this issue as expressed in the above holdings, we do not find it necessary to accept or reject the market theory approach; rather, we find that, since Copeland has identified several of the named defendants as having manufactured the products that caused his injury, this case neither requires nor justifies the major policy change necessary to adopt the market share theory in Florida.