Enforcing The Line Between Product Liability And Public Nuisance

In Short

The Situation: Courts are increasingly confronted with attempts by the plaintiffs' bar to repackage traditional product liability claims as public nuisance claims, as a ploy to circumvent various elements of product liability law.

The Result: Jones Day won a significant victory for Chevron in paraquat multidistrict litigation ("MDL"), convincing the MDL court to reject the public nuisance claims as disguised product liability claims.

Looking Ahead: After some outlier decisions expanding the scope of public nuisance liability beyond its traditional metes and bounds, there is an emerging trend of courts-across states and contexts-limiting nuisance liability to its traditional confines. From a public policy standpoint, this trend is encouraging.