Multiple Necessary & Multiple Sufficient PDF

Preview

Summary

Satz...

Description

Satz Law 550 09/25/20 Pre-Class Notes  Trying to come up with a reading schedule for us to feel a little more comfortable  Reach out to Satz if you have any ideas for torts-themed movie night with discussion! Multiple Necessary & Multiple Sufficient (continued) McDonald v Robinson  Robinson upset because he doesn’t think he did anything wrong and, if joint and severally liable and Padzensky doesn’t have any money, Robinson must supply the rest! Claims improper joinder!  Do they need to have had a common purpose for multiple necessary cause? No – injury is indivisible. For multiple necessary cause...  Do you have a situation in which EACH of multiple defendants is necessary for injury to have occurred?  Is the injury indivisible?

o o

Is it the same injury or is it two different injuries? Can you separate your injury into two parts?

Aldridge v Goodyear (Maryland 1999)  Toxic tort, Goodyear plant, trying to figure out if they could hold Goodyear responsible for providing various chemicals to plant.  Court said since there was no signature illness and cancer could have been caused by several things, they couldn’t show causation. Ford Motor Co v Boomer  State trooper engaged in car inspections, breathed in a lot of asbestos and ended up dying of mesothelioma  Defendants brought up how many other exposures he’d had to asbestos including working in a shipyard, had expert testify that shipyard asbestos had higher risk of causing mesothelioma.  Suing for negligence and failure to warn



Trial court jury found in favor of decedent’s estate; supreme court disagreed and disliked that jury was instructed on a substantial contributing factor test, because the but-for doesn’t work; they reversed and remanded.

Wannall v Honeywell  Plaintiff who has been doing mechanic work for friends and family, not professionally and was also exposed when he served in the navy.  Dr. Marcowickz testimony: “no safe level of asbestos exposure has been established.” None of his testimony drew the link between exposure and decedent’s cancer.  Δ1 + Δ2 → π Δ1 → π Δ2 → π  Cannot say “but for” shipyard or “but for” mechanic work, but you can cross out any number of defendants and still get the injury.  RULING: To overcome summary judgment in a negligence action involving multiple causes, a plaintiff’s expert must sufficiently provide medical or scientific evidence directly linking the defendant’s product to the plaintiff’s injury.  (Probably will be used in cases where there is a substantial time factor between exposures) Jones v LA Fitness (Mark this!)  Note 5: Substantial factor can be used when we have multiple sufficient causes (you can cross out any of defendants and still get the harm!)  Note 6: You cannot have a trivial factor count as a substantial factor; substantial means it has such an effect as to lead reasonable “men” to regard it as a cause  Doomed plaintiffs: second defendant who could’ve caused the exact same harm, we only put liability on the first defendant EVEN IF second defendant could’ve caused exact same injury. Summer v Tice  Court said, “Plaintiff needs compensation!”  FACTS: Plaintiff was instructing Defendants on shooting quail. Plaintiff went up the hill ahead of the two Defendants. A quail appeared somewhere in the middle of the triangle between them. Defendants are firing at the quail but shot the Plaintiff.  Both defendants acted in an identically careless manner. The plaintiff’s inability to prove who caused the injury doesn’t mean he can’t be compensated...

2

o (1) Two defendants acting identically carelessly o (2) Equally likely to have caused the injury o (3) Conduct of only one actually caused the injury *Next class, we will launch into Chapter 5: Proximate Causation! *Make sure you understand the different types of causation!

3...