Mass Torts

A mass tort is an injury to a large number of individuals from the same negligent act. Examples of recent mass tort litigation include the 3M Earplug litigation, the Johnson & Johnson talcum powder litigation, the C.R. Bard Hernia Mesh litigation, the Prilosec/Nexium Proton-Pump-Inhibitor litigation, the Philips CPAP and BiPAP machine litigation, and the Camp Lejeune Water Contamination litigation.

All of these examples of mass tort litigation take the form of a legal mechanism known as Multi District Litigation, typically abbreviated as MDL. Most people are familiar with class action lawsuits where large numbers of individuals participate as a “class” of people who suffered a similar harm.

The situation is similar in an MDL, but it does differ significantly from class actions. MDLs arise when many individuals across multiple different jurisdictions suffer a harm from the same source. For example, in the 3M Earplug litigation, service members in the United States military received a standard-issue earplug manufactured by 3M from approximately 2003 to 2015. There is evidence that these earplugs were defective and did not protect the hearing of the service members who used them in the way that 3M claimed the earplugs did.

The plaintiffs in the 3M Earplug litigation allege that as a result of 3M’s defective earplugs, service members suffered harm such as hearing loss and tinnitus. The number of service members who used these earplugs is in the hundreds of thousands. It would be an inefficient use of our court system if each individual who alleged harm from these earplugs filed their own lawsuit. Most of the evidence against 3M would be the same for each service member affected by the earplugs and having hundreds of judges ruling on the same issues across hundreds of thousands of cases is unnecessary.

Instead, an MDL allows litigation like this to be consolidated in one location with one judge ruling on all pre-trial issues that may arise. This allows all the rulings to be consistent across the board and gives every plaintiff access to the same information such as documents and witness testimony. Once the pre-trial process is complete, each plaintiff is afforded the opportunity to have their day in court and provide evidence as to how they were specifically harmed by the defendant.

MDLs differ from class action lawsuits in this way because in an MDL, each individual plaintiff has an opportunity to prove how they have been harmed. In a class action lawsuit, the harm is typically the same for everyone and not individualized, or the harm is easy to calculate for each person.

Mass tort litigation often takes several years to conclude, and the attorneys representing you must adhere to various rulings and deadlines set by a judge who has been tasked with handling complex legal and logistical issues. The mass tort litigation attorneys at Smith, Gildea & Schmidt, LLC have the experience and knowledge necessary to navigate through MDLs and ensure that your rights are protected.