Michael M. Martin was quoted in the National Law Journal about the difficulty for plaintiffs to make their cases in talc products liability litigation.
Prior to those changes, a Missouri judge had allowed plaintiffs’ evidence into trials, but others have not. A year ago, New Jersey Superior Court Judge Nelson Johnson tossed two plaintiffs’ experts from two upcoming trials, criticizing their “made-for-litigation” methods. His subsequent summary judgment ruling is now on appeal.
The New Jersey ruling and the California decision have some key distinctions: Unlike in New Jersey, the California case went to trial, and the experts weren’t the same in both cases. But both judges appeared concerned about the epidemiological studies on which the experts had relied.
“It’s one of those areas that’s as of yet going to be very difficult for plaintiffs to make in their cases, depending upon how strictly the court applies requirements for bringing in this kind of scientific evidence,” said Michael M. Martin, a professor at Fordham Law School. “These are tough cases for plaintiffs to make simply because we don’t know enough about how these cancers occur, and if you can’t do that it’s hard to show what the defendants did was defective.”