REPORT
Silica inhalation injury claims skyrocketed beginning in 2001, prompting concerns that silicia litigation would become a mass tort. It instead collapsed following the uncovering of abusive diagnostic practices, which can be decreased or even prevented if changes in several areas of litigation procedures are pursued.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
While a class action such as one brought under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 23 is certainly the most well-known mechanism for aggregating large numbers of similar claims, other approaches include mass joinder of parties, mass consolidation of separate cases, or multidistrict litigation transfer of federal cases from across the country into a single action for pretrial processing; corporate reorganizations under the U.S. Bankruptcy…
NEWS RELEASE
April 4, 2007 news release: RAND Study Finds Class Actions Against Insurers Rose Prior to Recent Reforms and Many Cases Occurred Outside Public View.
RESEARCH BRIEF
This research brief describes characteristics of more than 700 class action cases against large U.S. insurers -- trends in claims, their allegations, and their outcomes -- including the vast majority of cases that never become certified as a class.
REPORT
Claims for asbestos injuries have risen sharply since the 1990s and total more than 730,000 through 2002. At least 8,400 defendants have paid more than $70 billion on the litigation, 42 percent of which has gone to claimants.
REPORT
The number of asbestos claims filed annually, the number and types of firms named as defendants in asbestos litigation, and the costs of the litigation to those defendants have all risen sharply in recent years. Given these trends, the authors examine the dimensions of asbestos litigation: How many claims have been filed? By whom? Against whom? For what kinds of conditions? At what cost and with what economic effects? And, if current…
JOURNAL ARTICLE
She extends her consideration of mass tort litigation to include what she terms "the new social policy torts": suits against tobacco companies, firearms manufacturers, and managed care organizations that are intended to change public policy.
REPORT
This briefing documents the first phase of a new study on asbestos litigation, now the longest-running mass tort litigation in U.S. history.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
In this article, the authors explore alternative strategies for class-action reform aimed at improving the cost-benefit ratio of damage class actions.
REPORT
Class action lawsuits -- allowing one or a few plaintiffs to represent many who seek redress -- have long been controversial.
REPORT
Class action lawsuits-allowing one or a few plaintiffs to represent many who seek redress-have long been controversial.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
The civil justice system has not responded well to the challenge of handling mass torts, and many innovations have been proposed to improve processing of these cases.
REPORT
Since the early 1980s, thinking about mass toxic torts has changed dramatically, and a consensus has emerged calling for substantial modifications in traditional court processes to improve the efficiency and equity of the mass claims resolution proce...
REPORT
Presents the Institute for Civil Justice's (ICJ) agenda for a program of research on mass tort litigation, and the results of ICJ work to date.
PEOPLE
Adjunct
Ph.D. in mathematics, University of California, Los Angeles; B.A. in mathematics, University of California, Berkeley
PEOPLE
Senior Economist
Ph.D. and M.S. in economics, University of Wisconsin-Madison; B.A. in economics, University of Connecticut
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