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These lawsuits are part of a longstanding effort by cities and states to try and develop a theory of manufacturer legal accountability through public nuisance l
by HillRat 3y ago
These lawsuits are part of a longstanding effort by cities and states to try and develop a theory of manufacturer legal accountability through public nuisance law, an effort that is perhaps morally laudable but legally fraught; to date, other than a few outlier environmental cases from the '70s, courts have almost uniformly declined to create a kind of parallel product-liability law through nuisance. While individual car owners have legal recourse through traditional product liability and negligence routes, hard to see these cases succeeding in court; on the other hand, they do create some additional political pressure on Hyundai/Kia to take more responsibility, which is ultimately where the tobacco lawsuits in the '90s ended up -- not winning at the bench, but at the conference table.
- inconceivable 3y agothis is also seemingly the strategy for anti-gun manufacturer efforts. so far they don't seem to be successful.
- lesuorac 3y agoCan you clarify? Afaik, lawsuits again gun manufacturers are actually successful [1]. [1]: https://apnews.com/article/sandy-hook-school-shooting-remington-settlement-e53b95d398ee9b838afc06275a4df403 https://apnews.com/article/sandy-hook-school-shooting-reming...
- HillRat 3y agoThanks to tort carveouts in the PLCAA, liability suits against firearms manufacturers have additional hurdles to overcome; the Remington settlement was surprising because the plaintiffs would have had a hard time prevailing at trial. It’s likely that Remington (which settled without admitting fault), didn’t want to run the risk of sympathetic plaintiffs managing to kick a state-level hole in their otherwise ironclad federal protection against product liability suits.
- inconceivable 3y agooh right, i forgot, the mass shootings stopped.
- theGnuMe 3y agoThe auto manufacturers absolutely have liability.
- amanaplanacanal 3y agoCan you point to some case law supporting that position? Or some sort of legal analysis?