Document XzKGe3OR8YJLY9ZOQm3VGK8bx

FD-S55 "Market Share Liability" The Sindell decision and its disturbing implications for defendants. of other parties, on behalf of herself and other women similarly situated. The trial court dismissed the action, brought under several theories of liabil ity, on the grounds that the plaintiff could not identify which defendant had manufactured the DES her mother had ingested. Between 1941 and 1971 various drug companies promoted and marketed DES (diethvlstilbesterol) Bases of Liability -- a synthetic compound of estrogen. The drug was On appeal,the California Supreme Court, at 607 administered to pregnant women to prevent mis P2d 624 (Cal 1980), CCH Prod Liab Rptr 8648. carriages. It is estimated that up to three million reversed the previous judgment of dismissal. Until women took DES during pregnancy. In 1971 the Sindell, generally, plaintiffs were required to prove FDA ordered the drug companies to cease marketing that their injuries were caused by an act of the- DES to prevent miscarriages and to warn that the defendant. The court evaluated each of the following drug should not be used by pregnant women. It has exceptions that the plaintiff proposed as a basis for been alleged that DES may cause pre-cancerous holding the defendant liable. vaginal and cervical growths in female children The first exception, known as alternative liabil exposed to DES before birth. These may manifest ity, is embodied in 433B, subsection 3 of the themselves after a minimum latent period of ten to Restatement (Second) of Torts, which states: twelve years. Where the conduct of two or more actors is In Sindell v. Abbott Laboratories, the plaintiff tortious, and it is proved that harm has been alleged that, as a result of her mother's ingestion of caused to the plaintiff by only one of them, but DES during pregnancy, she developed a malignant there is uncertainty as to which one has caused it, bladder tumor. Unable to identify which company the burden is upon each actor to prove that he has manufactured the drug claimed to be responsible not caused the harm. for her injuries, the plaintiff nevertheless brought an This theory is best illustrated by the case of Sum action against eleven drugionapanies-andLajQVUPber^ mers v. Tice, 199 P2d 1 (Cal 1948). Two hunters, ~. IB OCTOBER I960 A FOR THE DEFENSE 8008 0617 SCF-FA-7496 PRODUCED BY FORD