Monsanto protects itself from product liability
- ------------------------------------ from RACHEL'S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #383 March 31, 1994 - News and resources for environmental justice. Environmental Research Foundation P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403 Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org http://www.envirolink.org/pubs/rachel/rhwn383.htm - ------------------------------------[ snippet from article on rBGH article titled "Drug Experiments on People" with pertinent info on how Monsanto protects itself from product liability ] . . .
How can Monsanto risk an experiment on the milk supply of the American public? If widespread harm should occur, might not the company be liable for billions of dollars in damages and possible bankruptcy?
Luckily for Monsanto, and others similarly situated, recent court rulings have provided safe shelter for corporations whose consumer products result in massive litigation.
The new corporate shelter was invented by Judge Jack Weinstein in the case of Vietnam veterans seeking damages from Dow, Diamond Shamrock, Monsanto and other companies that produced Agent Orange. Agent Orange was an herbicide used in Vietnam to defoliate jungles. Many American troops exposed to the chemical during the war say they and their children were harmed. The National Academy of Sciences and the Veterans Administration in 1993 said the vets WERE harmed. [12]
The courts allowed the companies to settle with some of the plaintiffs for a fixed amount, with the stipulation that no future lawsuits can be brought against the Agent Orange manufacturers, even by people who weren't party to today's settlement because they did not know they had been harmed. In future, if a person develops a disease they believe was caused by Agent Orange, they cannot sue - --their Constitutional right to due process was extinguished by the original settlement.
This is exceptionally important because litigation typically proceeds in stages. As we saw in the case of asbestos, each new lawsuit brings forth more evidence of what a company knew when. Jury awards and penalties increase as a company's deceptions and coverups are progressively revealed. The first plaintiffs may fail completely, but the 20th or 50th may be awarded many millions of dollars in compensatory and punitive damages, as the courts see, and then punish companies for, a pattern of unethical behavior.
The new legal doctrine cuts off the possibility of a series of suits against a company, thus providing almost complete protection against suits that might cause bankruptcy.
This new legal doctrine has recently been used to limit the liabilities of companies that marketed silicone breast implants. It is a creative legal invention which sharply limits the liability of corporations that market possibly-harmful products that have not been fully tested for safety. Recently more than 8 million Vietnam veterans asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review this new legal doctrine, on the ground that their Constitutional rights had been taken from them. The attorney generals of all 50 states joined with the vets asking the Supreme Court to review this new doctrine. [13] The Supreme Court refused. And that is one reason why companies are willing to risk exposing the general public to drugs in their food without fully understanding the consequences. Under doctrines invented by the Reagan/Bush courts, corporations are protected but the public is not.
[13] P.B. Onderonk, Jr. and others, "No. 93-860 In the Supreme Court of the United States, October Term, 1993, Shirley Ivy v. Diamond Shamrock on Petition for Writ of Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit."
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