What is a tort?

• a wrongful act or an infringement of a right (other than under contract) leading to civil legal liability

• No liability without fault

• wrongful injury

Mass torts

• legal actions that allow a law firm to group together many clients that have been injured by the same corporation

==Difference from class action ==

• a mass tort is individualized, the judge decides if there is more loss the person gets more compensation

• in a class action, the individuals in the group get the same compensation (generalized)

Elements of tort law

1. Duty

   • Can be difficult to define, sometimes is written law (e.g, driving), and other times it is common knowledge (reasonable care)

2. Brach if duty

   • wrongdoer fails to comply with what the duty requires (intentional or negligent)

3. causation

   • the plaintiff must prove that his or her injuries and losses were caused by the defendant (e.g, an individual with back problems is injured in a motor vehicle accident)

4. damages

   • monetary compensation for the injuries sustained and value awarded by the court

Types of liability

• negligence: car accidents

• Strict: speeding, selling alcohol to a minor

• absolute: owning dangerous animals, using explosives

Various types of torts

1. pesticides

   • Roundup

   • Paraquat

2. Pharmaceuticals

   • Elmiron

   • Xarelto

3. Medical devices/ implants

   • Hernia mesh

   • CPAP machine

4. Catastrophic Personal injury

   • Winter Storm Uri

   • Camp Lejeune

Mass accident

• cases that arise from a catastrophic event that injures many people or causes damages to many different owners’ properties

Toxic tort

• actions are geographical confined, the geographic center

• involves something like the spills of a toxic substance that might cause several people to develop illnesses, sometimes over long periods of time

True mass tort

• Requires the new and innovative procedures for the collective treatment of claims that can be found in class actions and multidistrict litigation

==Product liability ==

• one important characteristic of mas torts is they are the most common product liability claims

• most of them are claiming the product is defectively designed (e.g, hernia mesh)

• other claims are that the manufacturers did not provide effective warnings (e.g, roundup)

Federal and state court

State court and mass torts: each state has its own set of laws pertaining to mass torts based on how they interpret the obligations we have as members of society

**Federal courts and mass courts: **there are federal courts in every state, but there is no federal tort law. The plaintiffs can borrow the state law that benefits them more.

Settlement

How are plaintiffs compensated in mass tort claims?

• attorney fees, legal fees, etc

• subrogation liens: the amount that the medical insurance can take from the settlement for treatment they offered related to the injury

• final payment