Highlights of the latest product liability cases from around the country.

Status report from Philadelphia: The Mass Tort Program is alive and well. A recent decision by Judge Norman Ackerman of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas sent a message to pharmaceutical giant Wyeth (formerly American Home Products) that the court would not require persons injured by diet drugs to refile their lawsuits in the states where they live. Instead, by denying Wyeth's Motion to Dismiss on the Basis of <i>Forum Non Conveniens,</i> Judge Ackerman allowed roughly 50 drug cases to remain in Philadelphia County. More importantly, with approximately 12,000 diet drug cases still pending in Philadelphia, the decision means that thousands of other litigants will likely not have to face dismissal and refiling in their home states.

ASTM International, originally known as the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), was formed more than a century ago. One of the largest voluntary standards development organizations in the world, it is a trusted source for technical standards for materials, products, systems, and services. For more than a century, ASTM has met the technical needs of commerce. ASTM International provides a forum in which stakeholders from both the supply and demand sides of the marketplace come together and produce documents for trade and best business practices that are used around the globe. ASTM's market extends over 100 industrial and management sectors, ranging from construction materials and environmental assessment to medical devices and property management systems. More than 100 nations are represented in ASTM International. It's worth a visit to the Web site, <i>www.astm.org</i>, on a periodic basis, to see what's new.

Features

Conducting a due diligence review has long been standard practice for anyone considering the purchase of a company's stock or assets or a piece of real estate. In some disciplines, such as environmental law, the potential imposition of strict liability for contamination or the threat of third-party lawsuits has resulted in comprehensive environmental due diligence becoming an essential part of any pre-acquisition review. The same is the case with respect to product liability. Given the proliferation of product liability lawsuits, due diligence should no longer be thought of as a tool used exclusively in mergers and acquisitions ("M&amp;A"). Rather, it should become an integral part of the corporate culture.

Features

On Sept. 30, 2004, the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (Kelly, J.) dismissed an attempt to challenge a settlement reached by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission ("CPSC"). <i>Jerome Mahoney and Rebecca G. Mahoney v. U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission,</i> U.S. D.C. (E.D. Pa.), Civil Action No. 04-1833, Sept. 30, 2004. The 2001 administrative action against Daisy Manufacturing Company ("Daisy"), the manufacturer of the Daisy air rifle, is one of its most controversial cases. In that action, announced by outgoing Chairman Ann Brown over the vigorous dissent of Commissioner Mary Sheila Gall, the CPSC charged that some 7.5 million Daisy Powerline Airguns were defective due to alleged design defects that created a "substantial product hazard" under Section 15(a)(2) of the Consumer Product Safety Act and that the guns presented a "substantial risk of injury" to children under Sections 15(c)(1) and (c)(2) of the Federal Hazardous Substances Act. The complaint alleged, among other things, that design defects could cause BBs to become lodged in the gun's magazine, even though the gun might appear to be empty. As a consequence, the Commission stated, it is reasonably foreseeable that consumers, most of whom are children or young adults, are likely to be less careful when handling the gun, and that BBs are "likely to be fired at and strike the consumer or another person in the vicinity."

Features

Recent rulings of interest to you and your practice.

Features

The Supreme Court considered gay rights at the justices' first private conference of the new year on Jan. 7. The Florida gay adoption case, <i>Lofton v. Secretary of the Florida Department of Children and Families</i>, is one of dozens of cases the Court discussed at its conference with an eye toward granting or denying review.

Features

International marriages and personal relationships place special demands on family lawyers whose clients require dependable advice about complex international family law issues. This has led to an increasing role for international family law counsel. Today, it would hardly be unusual for an American man and a French woman living in New York to marry in Bermuda, move from New York to Singapore on business, own real estate in Canada and a business in England, and have children in school in Switzerland. If they separated and one spouse unilaterally returned with the children to live in New York, both parties might well require legal advice regarding many matters, each of which might have a significant international component, concerning divorce, custody, equitable distribution, child support, spousal support and child abduction.