An increasing body of litigation claiming damages for the
effects of manufactured products.
Among the recent cases are the lawsuits brought in the United
States against the manufacturers of the fuel additive MTBE. Those
cases have given rise to some interesting problems of causation,
the liability of individual manufacturers being ascertained by
reference to the amount of harmful product which each released into
the stream of commerce. A manufacturer with an historic 10% market
share now faces the prospect of liability for 10% of the total
harm.
A similar approach has been advocated in numerous lawsuits
against the petrochemical and energy industries for causing climate
change. In Lliyuya v RWE, a German case, the claimant Peruvian
farmer seeks to hold a German energy company liable for 0.47% of
his losses arising from the melting of a local glacier, on the
basis of the company's alleged contribution to global
greenhouse gas emissions.
