Opinion ID: 2121050
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: courts which have rejected market share liability

Text: Other than these cases, the concept of market share liability has not received strong support. The supreme courts of two of our sister States have outrightly rejected its application in DES daughter cases. The Iowa Supreme Court rejected the doctrine on a broad policy basis. ( Mulcahy v. Eli Lilly & Co. (Iowa 1986), 386 N.W.2d 67, 75.) Mulcahy equated the theory with a court-constructed insurance plan which requires manufacturers to pay for injuries their product may not have caused. It recognized market share liability as a radical departure from traditional tort concepts and it rejected allowing `negligence in the air' to serve as a substitute for causation in fact. (386 N.W.2d at 76, quoting F. Pollock, The Law of Torts 455 (11th ed. 1920).) The court concluded that awarding damages to an admitted innocent party by means of a court-constructed device that places liability on manufacturers who were not proved to have caused the injury involves social engineering more appropriately within the legislative domain. Mulcahy, 386 N.W.2d at 76. The Missouri Supreme Court agreed with the arguments of the drug manufacturers that market share liability was unfair, unworkable and contrary to Missouri law and violated the State's public policy. ( Zafft v. Eli Lilly & Co. (Mo.1984), 676 S.W.2d 241, 246.) The court found that Sindell had not sufficiently articulated the concepts involved. Furthermore, there was too great a risk that the actual wrongdoer was not before the court and the rule exposed those who were joined to liability greater than their responsibility. Zafft rejected the arguments that as between an innocent plaintiff and negligent defendant, the latter should bear the cost of the injury, and that defendants can better absorb the costs. It noted that the requirement of proving causation had not been altered by the development of products liability law in Missouri. Thus, shifting the burden of proof to the defendants would significantly alter existing rights and liabilities of the litigants. It also reasoned that strong public policy arguments militated against market share liability. The court was concerned that liability of this type would discourage desired pharmaceutical research and development while adding little incentive to production of safe products because all companies face potential liability regardless of their safety efforts. (676 S.W.2d at 247.) The court concluded that there was insufficient public policy justification to support abandonment of so fundamental a concept of tort law as the requirement that a plaintiff prove, at a minimum, a nexus between wrongdoing and injury. Most of the Federal courts which have addressed the issue of applying market share liability in a DES case have declined to adopt such a radical departure from the common law of the State in which each sits without a clearer direction from that State's supreme court. In Tidler v. Eli Lilly & Co. (D.C.Cir.1988), 851 F.2d 418, the court reasoned that the theory that plaintiffs would have us `construct' requires that we build on a new foundation, not on the structural underpinnings of the traditional common law of torts. (851 F.2d at 424.) Neither the highest court of Maryland nor of the District of Columbia had addressed the issue, and the Tidler court held that such a marked deviation from the common law was beyond the authority of a Federal court. In Mizell v. Eli Lilly & Co. (D.S.C.1981), 526 F.Supp. 589, the district court found that according to conflict of law principles, California substantive law, and thus the Sindell rule, was the appropriate choice of law. However, the court refused to apply California substantive law because it would violate the public policy of the forum. The court concluded that [m]arket share represents a radical departure from the body of products liability law that has been developed in South Carolina and has the potential for placing liability on defendants who bear no responsibility for the defective product. 526 F.Supp. at 596; see also Morton v. Abbott Laboratories (M.D.Fla.1982), 538 F.Supp. 593, 599 (market share theory unquestionably represe from the traditional concept of causation and there was no indication that Florida would abandon such a fundamental principle); Pipon v. Burroughs-Wellcome Co. (D.N.J.1982), 532 F.Supp. 637, 639 (there is no indication that the New Jersey Supreme Court would deviate from the causation requirement), aff'd (3d Cir.1982), 696 F.2d 984; Ryan v. Eli Lilly & Co. (D.S.C.1981), 514 F.Supp. 1004, 1019. Plaintiffs have pursued the application of market share liability with minimal success in areas other than DES cases. The plaintiff in Shackil v. Lederle Laboratories (1989), 116 N.J. 155, 561 A.2d 511, became severely retarded as a result of a diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus (DPT) vaccine. Unable to identify the specific manufacturer, plaintiff sued a number of manufacturers who potentially could have produced the vaccine she was given and argued for adoption of a market share liability theory. The court determined that to adopt market share liability in a DPT case would frustrate overarching public-policy and public-health considerations by threatening the continued availability of needed drugs and impairing the prospects of the development of safer vaccines. (116 N.J. at 158, 561 A.2d at 512.) The court's decision was further influenced by the fact that Congress had already established legislation to compensate vaccine-injured plaintiffs. (National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, 42 U.S.C. §§ 300aa-1 through 300aa-34 (Supp.V 1987).) The court also addressed the plaintiff's argument that there was a trend in New Jersey to relax the causation requirement. It noted that a trial court in Ferrigno v. Eli Lilly & Co. (1980), 175 N.J.Super. 551, 420 A.2d 1305, held that alternative liability based on a percentage-share apportionment was permissible in a DES case. However, that complaint was dismissed following the appellate court opinion in Namm v. Charles E. Frosst & Co. (App.Div.1981), 178 N.J.Super. 19, 427 A.2d 1121, which refused to adopt alternative liability or enterprise liability in a DES action. Upon further review of New Jersey law, it found that there was no trend toward wholesale adoption of market share liability. The Oregon Supreme Court rejected use of the theory against two DPT manufacturers in the context of a design defect. ( Senn v. Merrell-Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (1988), 305 Or. 256, 751 P.2d 215.) The court claimed that the adoption of any theory of alternative liability requires a profound change in fundamental tort principles, which is more properly the domain of the legislature. 305 Or. at 271, 751 P.2d at 223; see also Chapman v. American Cyanamid Co. (11th Cir.1988), 861 F.2d 1515 (child died after receiving a DPT vaccine; parents could not proceed against three manufacturers on an alternative liability theory); Poole v. Alpha Therapeutic Corp. (N.D.Ill.1988), 696 F.Supp. 351 (Federal court would not recognize market share liability in an action against manufacturers of a type of blood product from which plaintiff contracted AIDS); Griffin v. Tenneco Resins, Inc. (W.D.N.C.1986), 648 F.Supp. 964 (court determined that under North Carolina law manufacturers of benzidine congener dyes could not be held liable based on market share theory); Sheffield v. Eli Lilly & Co. (1983), 144 Cal. App.3d 583, 192 Cal.Rptr. 870 (rejecting application of market share liability against manufacturers of Salk polio vaccine); but see Morris v. Parke, Davis & Co. (C.D.Cal. 1987), 667 F.Supp. 1332 (applying market share liability against manufacturers of DPT based on allegations of industry manufacturing defects). Other than in actions against drug manufacturers, the major area of cases in which plaintiffs have attempted to impose market share liability has been asbestos litigation. The success rate in these cases is considerably less than in DES cases. In Goldman v. Johns-Manville Sales Corp. (1987), 33 Ohio St.3d 40, 514 N.E.2d 691, the Ohio Supreme Court rejected its application in an action against suppliers and manufacturers of products containing asbestos by the wife of a person who died allegedly due to asbestos exposure. The court reasoned that market share liability is inappropriate in an asbestos litigation case, especially where it cannot be shown that all the products to which the injured party was exposed are completely fungible. (33 Ohio St.3d at 50, 514 N.E.2d at 700.) Moreover, the risk the manufacturer created is not accurately reflected in its market share because many products contain different degrees of asbestos, and the largest asbestos supplier, Johns-Manville, was not amenable to suit. Instead of adopting such a divergent theory, the court concluded that the problem was more in need of a legislative solution. See Case v. Fibreboard Corp. (Okla.1987), 743 P.2d 1062, 1067 (the public policy favoring recovery on the part of an innocent plaintiff does not justify the abrogation of the rights of a potential defendant to have a causative link proven between that defendant's specific tortious acts and the plaintiff's injuries); Mullen v. Armstrong World Industries, Inc. (1988), 200 Cal.App.3d 250, 246 Cal. Rptr. 32; Nutt v. A.C. & S. Co. (Del.Super. 1986), 517 A.2d 690, 694 (rejecting market share liability and recognizing that such a change in tort law should be left to the legislature); Bateman v. Johns-Manville Sales Corp. (5th Cir.1986), 781 F.2d 1132; Thompson v. Johns-Manville Sales Corp. (5th Cir.1983), 714 F.2d 581; Marshall v. Celotex Corp. (E.D.Mich.1987), 651 F.Supp. 389, 393 (asbestosis litigation is an inappropriate area in which to extend market share liability); Starling v. Seaboard Coast Line R.R. Co. (S.D.Ga.1982), 533 F.Supp. 183; see also Cummins v. Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. (1985), 344 Pa.Super. 9, 495 A.2d 963 (rejecting theory in action against manufacturers of multipiece tire and rim assemblies because products are not sufficiently similar to be considered identical or fungible); Bixler v. Avondale Mills (Minn.App.1987), 405 N.W.2d 428 (cotton flannelette not fungible product).