Mass Torts and Product Liability Litigation — Representative Engagements

Clients choose Orrick to defend lawsuits pending in state and federal courts throughout the United States. Highlights of our work include:

• The Dow Chemical Company (Dow). Orrick helped secure a historic and complete win for Dow in actions filed by Vietnam War veterans and by Vietnamese nationals alleging personal injuries from exposure to the herbicide Agent Orange. The Second Circuit issued three opinions affirming summary judgment for Dow and the other defendants. When The American Lawyer gave Orrick an honorable mention in its Litigation Department of the Year 2010 issue, it cited the Agent Orange litigation as an example of our "sterling appellate record for product liability defendants."
• The Dow Chemical Company. Orrick represented The Dow Chemical Company with respect to claims relating to silicone breast implants manufactured by Dow Corning Corporation, as well as on the overall strategy to litigate and resolve breast implant claims against the company which resulted in the successful consensual resolution of the Dow Corning bankruptcy case. Orrick continues to advise Dow Chemical regarding matters related to the Settlement Facility-Dow Corning Trust and the DCC Litigation Facility, Inc.
  
• Pfizer (Wyeth). Orrick has served as lead counsel to Wyeth, now Pfizer, on numerous product liability actions in state and federal courts throughout the United States involving biologicals, prescription drugs and over-the-counter products. Orrick is national counsel for Wyeth in product liability litigation involving claims that childhood vaccines containing thimerosal have caused the development of "autistic-spectrum disorders" in some vaccinated children. Orrick has defended Wyeth against these claims in over 350 cases around the country.
• Dow AgroSciences LLC. Orrick has successfully represented Dow AgroSciences in two federal court cases involving claims brought by hundreds of plaintiffs in Ecuador and Brazil respectively. One case was brought under the Alien Tort Statute, and the other pleaded only common law torts on behalf of the foreign plaintiffs.
• Flexible Products. On Sept. 27, 2010, Flexible Products reached a settlement on the eve of one of the biggest mass tort trials of the year. The lawsuit, which originally dates to 2001, was brought by 1,400 coal miners in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, claiming respiratory injury from alleged exposure to mining safety products containing isocyanates. Orrick was brought in just three months before the trial to be co-lead counsel. The case settled after four weeks of jury selection. According to Law360, the judge in the case was quoted as saying to the jurors, "I have not been a part of a case wherein a citizen served on a jury for four weeks and heard not one minute of testimony. You've done something extraordinarily unique in the state of Alabama."
• Union Carbide Corporation. Orrick is lead national counsel to Union Carbide in connection with asbestos-related personal injury lawsuits and has achieved dismissals or trial victories in California, Ohio, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and elsewhere, including a complete defense verdict in Kelly-Moore v. Union Carbide, in which Kelly-Moore Paint sought $5.6 billion in damages related to their asbestos liabilities.
• American Cyanamid. Orrick represented American Cyanamid in State of Rhode Island v. Lead Industries Association, Inc., et al., in a case which led the Rhode Island Supreme Court to overturn the only public nuisance jury verdict ever entered against manufacturers of lead pigment that was once used in paint. Orrick lawyers also represent American Cyanamid and Cytec Industries Inc. as national counsel in litigation pending in courts around the United States concerning lead pigment in paint.

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