This paper examines the use of lawsuits against three industries that were eventually found to be selling products damaging to human heath and the environment: lead paint, asbestos, and fossil fuels. These industries are similar in that some companies tried to hide or distort information showing their products were harmful. Common law claims were eventually filed to hold the corporations accountable and compensate the injured. This paper considers the important role the lawsuits played in helping establish some accountability for the industries while also noting the limitations of the lawsuits. It will be argued that the lawsuits helped create pressure for government regulation of the industries’ products but were less successful at securing compensation for the injured. Thus, the common law claims strengthened and supported administrative regulation and the adoption of industry alternatives more than they provided a means of legal redress.
McCannM. Law and social movements: contemporary perspectives. Annu Rev Law Soc Sci2006; 2: 17–38.
2.
GalanterM. Planet of the APs: reflections on the scale of law and its users. Buff L Rev2005; 53: 1369.
3.
DenworthL. Toxic truth: a scientist, a doctor, and the battle over lead, Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2009.
4.
MarkowitzGRosnerD. “Cater to the children”: the role of the lead industry in a public health tragedy, 1900--1955. Am J Public Health2000; 90: 36–46.
5.
MichaelsD. Doubt is their product: how industry's assault on science threatens your health, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
6.
PerilloLA. Scraping beneath the surface: finally holding lead-based paint manufacturers liable by applying public nuisance and market-share liability theories. Hofstra Law Rev2003; 32: 1039.
7.
MillerKS. The voice of business: Hill & Knowlton and postwar public relations, Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1999.
8.
RabinR. The Rhode Island lead paint lawsuit: where do we go from here?New Solut2006; 16: 353–363.
9.
KraftMEScheberleD. Environmental justice and the allocation of risk: the case of lead and public health. Policy Stud J1995; 23: 113–122.
10.
MankB. Standing and global warming: is injury to all injury to none?Environ Law2005; 35: 1–85.
11.
GiffordDG. Public nuisance as a mass products liability tort. Univ Cin Law Rev2003; 71: 741–837.
12.
SchwartzVEGoldbergP. The law of public nuisance: maintaining rational boundaries on a rational tort. Washburn Legal J2005; 45: 541.
13.
Tucker E. Lead paint ruling could lead to more lawsuits, experts say. The Boston Globe, 23 February 2006, p. 1.
14.
BowkerM. Fatal deception: the untold story of asbestos: why it is still legal and still killing us, New York: Rodale Press, 2003.
15.
ScottR. Muscle and blood, New York: Dutton Adult, 1974.
16.
McCullochJTweedaleG. Defending the indefensible: the global asbestos industry and its fight for survival, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
17.
MarkowitzGRosnerD. The limits of thresholds: silica and the politics of science, 1935 to 1990. Am J Public Health1995; 85: 253–262.
18.
FreudenburgWRGramlingRDavidsonDJ. Scientific Certainty Argumentation Methods (SCAMs): science and the politics of doubt. Sociol Inq2008; 78: 2–38.
19.
CastlemanBI. Asbestos: medical and legal aspects, New York: Aspen, 1986.
20.
FishbackPVKantorSE. A prelude to the welfare state: the origins of workers' compensation, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006.
21.
BrodeurP. Outrageous misconduct: the asbestos industry on trial, New York: Pantheon Books, 1985.
22.
SelikoffIJChurgJHammondEC. Relation between exposure to asbestos and mesothelioma. N Engl J Med1965; 272: 560.
23.
CarrollSJ. Asbestos litigation, Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, 2005.
24.
PanelWHEP. Restoring the quality of our environment. Restoring the quality of our environment, Washington, DC: White House, 1965.
25.
MSNBC. Nixon administration debated global warming. MSNBC, 2 July 2010.
26.
OreskesNConwayEMShindellM. From Chicken Little to Dr. Pangloss: William Nierenberg, global warming, and the social deconstruction of scientific knowledge. Hist Stud Nat Sci2008; 38: 109–152.
27.
Oreskes N and Conway EM. Merchants of doubt: how a handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from tobacco smoke to global warming. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2010.
28.
GelbspanR. The heat is on: the climate crisis, the cover-up, the prescription, Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books, 1998.
29.
Cushman JH. Industrial group plans to battle climate treaty. New York Times, 26 April 1998, Section 1, p. 1.
30.
Vidal J. Revealed: how oil giant influenced Bush. The Guardian, 8 June 2005.
31.
Greenpeace. Koch industries: secretly funding the climate denial machine. Washington DC: Greenpeace Report, March, 2010.
32.
BrulleRJ. Institutionalizing delay: foundation funding and the creation of US climate change counter-movement organizations. Clim Change2014; 122: 681–694.
ColeLFosterS. From the ground up: environmental racism and the rise of the environmental justice movement, New York: New York University Press, 2001.
35.
ZinnH. A people's history of the United States: 1492-present, New York: Harper Collins, 2003.
36.
ShearerC. The political ecology of adaptation assistance. J Polit Ecol2012; 19: 174–183.
37.
GAO. Alaska Native villages: most are affected by flooding and erosion, but few qualify for federal assistance. Government Accountability Office Report. GAO-04-142, 12 December 2003. Washington, DC: GAO.
38.
USACE. Alaska Village erosion technical assistance program: an examination of erosion issues in the communities of Bethel, Dillingham, Kaktovik, Kivalina, Newtok, Shishmaref, and Unalakleet. Alaska Division, Army Corps of Engineers Report, April, 2006.
39.
HeedeR. Tracing anthropogenic carbon dioxide and methane emissions to fossil fuel and cement producers, 1854‚Äì2010. Clim Change2014; 122: 229–241.
