Products Liability

The Firm has earned a strong reputation for its regional and national representation of designers, manufacturers, and distributors in litigation involving claims of defects in a wide range of products over a broad spectrum of industries. Our lawyers have been at the forefront defending those products and industries against such claims, which are most often brought through mass filings in multiple jurisdictions or as individual cases that join large groups of plaintiffs. They have served as national counsel in RSI litigation; as regional and national counsel in asbestos litigation, toxic tort litigation, and toxic mold litigation; and on national trial teams and as coordinating counsel in EIFS litigation. Our success in these areas has come not only from knowing our clients’ businesses and products, but also from becoming expert on the science, engineering, and medicine upon which these litigations are based. In addition to handling large portfolios of cases, our lawyers have regularly represented entities sued in “one-off” matters concerning a broad range of consumer, industrial, and building products, including wall systems, coatings, sealants, roofing systems, chemicals, petrochemicals, and solvents.

Recent Successes

Winning a defense verdict in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut on behalf of our clients The Home Depot, Inc. and Rust-Oleum Corporation, against claims that Home Depot had negligently retained a former Rust-Oleum subsidiary that in turn negligently installed an epoxy floor coating;
Obtaining directed verdict at a jury trial of a more than $9 million construction defect/strict liability (failure to warn) case brought by the owner of the Margaritaville Hotel on Pensacola Beach, Florida, in the Circuit Court of Florida (Escambia County);
Obtaining summary judgment in the Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas (Westmoreland County) based on our Firm’s argument that the products liability claims against our client, a leading manufacturer of waterproofing products, were time-barred;
Successfully resolving at mediation claims alleging that our client’s high-strength epoxy grout installed at a Simple Cycle Power Plant for an electric utility, failed to meet minimum required compressive strengths;

Obtaining summary judgment in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut dismissing negligence claims and claims brought under the Connecticut Product Liability Act against the Firm’s clients, a well-known manufacturer of residential and industrial protective paints and coatings, and a leading national retailer;
Successfully resolving claims brought in the Superior Court of New Jersey (Middlesex County) alleging that the Firm’s client distributed defective plastics used to manufacture gas tanks on lawn mowers;
Successfully resolving breach of warranty and tort claims brought in the Superior Court of New Jersey (Bergen County) against the Firm’s client, a leading coatings manufacturer, relating to an allegedly defective basement waterproofing system;
Successfully resolving claims alleging defects to our client’s coating system in connection with its application to a commercial parking garage;
Prevailing before New Jersey’s Appellate Division, which affirmed the trial court’s dismissal on summary judgment of failure to warn claims in a cancer case relating to our clients’ petrochemicals;
Successfully resolving claims alleging that defects in our client’s wall system damaged ultra-luxury townhomes constructed on the west bank of the Hudson River and custom designed townhomes in Park Ridge, New Jersey;
Successfully resolving claims that the chemical constituents of our client’s building product caused extensive damage to a 360-bed nursing care facility in Brooklyn, New York;
Prevailing before New York’s Appellate Division, which affirmed the dismissal of design and manufacturing defect claims brought against one of our building product manufacturer clients;
Prevailing, in part, before the Fourth Circuit, which partially affirmed the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina’s grant of summary judgment in favor of our building product manufacturer client against claims brought under Connecticut’s Product Liability Act;
Briefing and successfully arguing before the New Jersey Supreme Court the leading case in the State addressing the integrated product rule and New Jersey’s economic loss doctrine;
Favorably resolving cancer claims brought in the Circuit Court of Florida (Dade County) arising from plaintiffs’ alleged exposures to our client’s petrochemicals;
Securing a voluntary dismissal of claims brought in four related cases in the Circuit Court of Florida (Marion County) by plaintiffs who alleged cancers from their exposures to our client’s polypropylene;
Favorably resolving brain injury claims in the United States District Court for the District of Vermont arising from plaintiffs’ alleged exposures to our client’s polyacrylamide flocculants;
Favorably resolving claims brought in the Superior Court of Massachusetts, under Massachusetts’ Product Liability Act, arising from plaintiff’s alleged exposure to our client’s lacquer thinners;
Favorably resolving wrongful death claims brought in the Superior Court of New Jersey, arising from exposure to brake part cleaners and gasoline;
Favorably resolving claims brought in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey alleging that plaintiff contracted cancer as a result of his exposure to our client’s solvents during the course of his work at petroleum refining facilities;
Securing a voluntary dismissal of plaintiff’s complaint brought in the Supreme Court of New York (Suffolk County) alleging that her decedent contracted cancer from his exposure to a large number of our clients’ products that allegedly contained benzene;
Securing summary judgment in the Superior Court of New Jersey—and persuading New Jersey’s Appellate Division to affirm on appeal and the New Jersey Supreme Court to deny certification--against plaintiff’s cancer claims arising from exposures to our client’s products that allegedly contained benzene;
Trying to defense verdict in the Supreme Court of New York (Erie County) a wrongful death case related to pure benzene exposure;
Securing a voluntary dismissal of plaintiff’s claims in the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island seeking damages for “toxic-induced injuries” arising from his alleged occupational exposure to styrene; and
Securing a voluntary dismissal of complaint brought in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey in which plaintiff alleged injury to his pancreas from exposure to fiberglass resins.