"One case doesn't tell us much, " says Carl Tobias, who teaches product liability law at the University of Richmond.
"It's not a benefit for Merck, " says Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond who teaches product liability law.
The drugmaker insists, however, that the Alabama State Court goofed by allowing the consumer to circumvent state product liability law and, instead, present his claim as fraud and misrepresentation.
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"These are radical proposals, "says Harvey Kaplan, a pharmaceuticals industry defense lawyer in Kansas City, Mo. who is spreading the word among the defense bar as cochair of the Defense Research Institute's committee on European product liability law.
"These are radical proposals, " says Harvey Kaplan, a pharmaceuticals industry defense lawyer in Kansas City, Missouri, who is spreading the word to the defense bar as cochair of the Defense Research Institute's committee on European product liability law.
Supporters of the plaintiffs say product-liability law is designed to prod manufacturers into producing safer products.
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But companies will recognise it, says Mr Steinhardt, because they already think in such terms when assessing product liability, employment law or raising capital.
The question of product liability would be best left to civil law.
The tide started to turn in 1985, when the European Commission passed a"product liability"directive, since adopted as law by all of the European Community member states.
The tide started to turn in 1985, when the European Commission passed a "product liability" directive, since adopted as law by all the member states of the European Community.
This feeling extends beyond employment law to areas such as product liability and environmental damage.
The right is generally happy to devolve decisions about education or health care to the states, notes Charles Fried, a professor of law at Harvard and former solicitor-general, but not product-liability rules and other forms of business regulation.
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