Court Opinion

ID: 9473682
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:36:49.687707+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:40.986168
License: Public Domain

JOHN R. BROWN, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur fully in Judge Roney’s opinion for the Court. Its correctness merely reflects the peculiar nature of GBS and, more so, the peculiar — in the sense of “uniqueness" — nature of the United States ac-knowledgement of unrestricted liability for damages occasioned by GBS and the executive’s official confession of liability by a cabinet member of unquestioned authority.
See, for example, In Re Swine Flu Immunization Products Liability Litigation v. United States, 533 F.Supp. 703, 718 (D.Utah 1982):
Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1407, all actions were consolidated by the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation on February 23, 1978 for coordinated pretrial procedures before the United States District Court in Washington, D.C.26 During pretrial procedures before that court, the controversial but crucial official statement of then-Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, Joseph A. Califano, Jr. was made.
Secretary Califano stated that with respect to those alleging GBS,27 the government was adopting a new policy. Persons who contracted GBS from the swine flu vaccine, in order to, receive federal compensation:
[W]ill not need to prove negligence by Federal workers or others in the Swine Flu Program as required by *482Federal law and the law in many states. Instead claimants in most eases need to show only that they in fact developed Guillain-Barre as a result of a Swine Flu vaccination and suffered the alleged damage as a result of that condition. (Statement of Secretary Califano, June 20, 1978).