Mass Torts: What You Should Know

Mass Torts: What You Should Know

When a group of individuals has been harmed by a particular product or incident, Searcy Denney is prepared to seek justice through a legal process called mass torts.

A mass tort is a consolidation of individual claims involving numerous plaintiffs against one or a few defendants to recover damages for harm caused by a particular product, such as a dangerous medicine or medical device, or an incident such as an environmental spill, etc. A class action is similar in that it involves a lawsuit brought on behalf of a group of plaintiffs with a common interest, in that they were harmed by the same product or incident, and are seeking similar damages.

The important distinction between mass torts and a class action is that each mass tort plaintiff has a unique, individual claim and distinct damages.

Yet mass torts cases enjoy the time and cost savings of having these individual claims consolidated for pretrial proceedings and discovery - such as depositions and document production - relating to generic liability and causation issues common to all claims.

Once this common work is completed, mass torts cases typically are scheduled separately for an individual trial for each plaintiff. Class action plaintiffs, however, generally are not considered on an individual basis. For this reason, class actions often are inappropriate for plaintiffs who have suffered unique personal injuries. Instead, class actions most often are filed where not all injured plaintiffs can be identified; where the damages are for financial or economic losses; where each plaintiff's losses are relatively small; and/or where the plaintiffs seek an injunction or want the Court to require the defendants to pay for future damages such as, for example, establishing medical monitoring funds.

Notable mass torts have involved environmental disasters, pharmaceutical and medical device claims, and litigation against Big Tobacco.

Some mass torts arise out of disasters such as toxic environmental spills, train crashes where many are killed or injured, bridge collapses, plane crashes, or hotel fires. Other mass torts claims involve pharmaceutical or medical device cases. Some of the recent and most noteworthy mass tort actions involve Vioxx, Ortho-Evra, Bextra, Medtronic Sprint Fidelis leads, contaminated Heparin, and Digitek.

The ongoing litigation against Big Tobacco on behalf of Floridians who were formerly members of the Engle class action is yet another example of a mass tort. In the Engle case, the Court overturned a $145 billion punitive damages award and ruled that the cases were required to proceed on an individual basis. But at the same time, at Searcy Denney we believe the Court made legal findings about what the individual smokers had already proven: that cigarettes are defective, that cigarettes are addictive, that the manufacturers were negligent in their manufacture and deceptive in their marketing of the cigarettes, and that the manufacturers engaged in fraud and conspired to conceal the dangers of smoking from the public for many decades. More than 8,000 individual smokers and their surviving family members are pursuing lawsuits in the State and Federal Courts.

The law firm of Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley has more than 32 years of experience handling mass torts cases for clients in a wide variety of circumstances.

As we do in all cases, we are prepared to make a significant time and resource commitment to mass torts claims where a number of individuals have suffered because of the negligent actions or defective products of an individual, corporation, or institution. Many of our attorneys have gained statewide and national recognition for their mass torts litigation of cases involving products such as contact lens solutions, Bextra, Digitek, bisphosphonates, hormone replacement drugs, Medtronic Sprint Fidelis leads, joint pain pumps, Ortho-Evra birth control patches, Kugel hernia meshes, Mentor Obtape vaginal slings, and MRI injuries.

If you or a family member has suffered harm from a product or incident and you believe this might be pursued as a mass torts claim, please fill out our contact form. Or call us to learn more and arrange for a confidential free consultation.

A listing of some of our Mass Tort Cases



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Florida Injury Law Firm – Searcy, Denney, Scarola, Barnhart & Shipley