Products Liability

Throughout our history, we have had significant trial experience in complex products liability litigation. This tradition is reflected in our wide variety of clients and complexity of matters. Our lawyers’ products liability experience includes such products as motor vehicles, aircraft, tank cars, power plants, oil field equipment, petrochemical plants, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, building materials, valves, and electronic equipment. These cases often involve multiple plaintiffs and defendants; complex engineering and design concepts; and complex federal, state, and international procedure.

Many of our clients are household-name corporations with manufacturing, marketing, subsidiaries, business relationships, and customers throughout the world. A few examples of our past and present representation are as follows:

• Represented Pfizer Inc. as lead counsel in securing a February 12, 2008 affirmance of a summary judgment against a plaintiff's claim that her brain tumor was caused by an oral polio vaccine allegedly manufactured by Pfizer. In Garcia v. Pfizer, No. 06-40703, the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit concluded that (1) the plaintiff did not offer sufficient proof that Pfizer made the vaccine alleged to have caused the injury; (2) Pfizer and the other defendants offered sufficient proof to rebut any inference that Pfizer could be responsible for the plaintiff's injury; and (3) Texas law, applicable to the case, has not adopted any of the alternative liability theories the plaintiff sought to apply to the case.
• Represent a major pharmaceutical manufacturer in ongoing products litigation. These cases involve a very effective drug which was withdrawn from the market and the attendant legal issues arising out of that action. The defense involved complex medical and scientific information coupled with venue, class action, and multi-jurisdictional issues. Additionally, we have also represented this client in products liability litigation pertaining to other pharmaceutical products.
• Represent a pharmaceutical company in a large docket of asbestos cases. These cases typically involve discovery disputes pertaining to protection of proprietary information and require close coordination with other regional counsel to ensure consistency in the approaches taken when objecting to discovery, production of documents and protective orders.
• Represent one of the U.S.'s largest silica suppliers as coordinating counsel in silicosis litigation, which involve large volumes of documents, coordination with other regional counsel, discovery disputes before the trial judge, and, when necessary, appellate work.
• Represent a truck manufacturer as regional trial counsel in a wide array of products liability litigation.
• Represent a chemical company as national litigation partnering counsel in numerous products liability matters. Our representation involves both consultation prior to litigation as well as providing counsel for its litigation requirements.
• Represented various aircraft and component manufacturers in wrongful death and products liability cases alleging defective design, manufacture, and marketing. These cases typically involve multiple plaintiffs, complex engineering and design concepts, and complex federal, state, and international procedure.
• Represented various medical device manufacturers in numerous wrongful death and injury cases involving complex medical devices and products. These cases require extensive engineering and scientific analysis; timely, strategic, and tactical decisions; and an effective motion and trial practice.
• Represented a heating and cooling products manufacturer in a products liability case involving wrongful death and personal injury claims allegedly resulting from defective furnaces sold and distributed to China.
• Represented an automobile manufacturer in trials within and outside Texas regarding vehicle rollovers.
• Provided trial defense in serious personal injury and death cases involving numerous products, including tractors, lawn mowers, and other powered machinery.

Asbestos and Silica Experience

In the past three years, we have taken approximately 18 asbestos cases to trial. The firm’s collective trial experience in asbestos and other toxic tort matters and the perceptions that we have thereby created with the plaintiffs’ bar of being always ready to go to trial, are reasons why we continue to attract other toxic tort defense clients. We are not out to try every case. Our ultimate goal is always to obtain the best resolution for the client, but yet have a thorough enough defense and preparation in a case to try the case if necessary.

In order for a corporate defendant that finds itself becoming a larger target, or for a usually peripheral defendant who has had a disastrous result, to function effectively, it is important to work well within a defense group dynamic. More specifically, in order to share records discovery, share medical experts, and participate in asbestos issues with plaintiffs’ counsel, the law firm representing an asbestos defendant needs to have “roots” in the toxic tort defense community. Beirne, Maynard & Parsons has those roots. In both asbestos and silica cases, partners in the firm have functioned on steering committees and as lead counsel for defense groups in coordinating discovery and experts. As such, members of the firm have had contact and maintained good relationships with a number of doctors and with various nationally known industrial hygiene experts.

Extensive Databases. The firm has developed a number of databases for its toxic tort defendants in asbestos and silica cases. These data files contain information on prior case witnesses, which span a number of years and experts’ depositions in other cases and jurisdictions. We also use asbestos-specific litigation programs to summarize essential information regarding each plaintiff’s claims, both for internal use and for reporting to the client in an efficient manner. For many years, our attorneys have reported to primary silica and asbestos clients in this format various information such as the plaintiff’s name, date of birth, social security number, possible exposure dates, job sites, work duties, diagnosis information and significant other health factors. The more cumbersome and costly use of traditional narrative reporting is used only for pre-trial reports and to obtain settlement authority. All routine status reporting and updating occurs through the use of the spreadsheet format.

Deposition Bank. Between transcripts we maintain on site and those which we have in storage, we have well over 1,000 depositions from prior cases, both of plaintiff’s fact witnesses and experts, in both asbestos and silica litigation. In addition, we have ready access, through email “networks,” to obtain transcripts in fairly short order of expert depositions which are in the possession of other firms specializing in toxic tort defense work. We have also been able to confer directly with some of the major court reporting services for them to search their databases in regard to transcripts they may have of experts’ depositions that are not in our possession nor known to members of our informal network.

Relationships with Major Plaintiffs’ Firms.  One of the reasons why we have been so successful in defending our clients is that we have longstanding good relationships with many of the major plaintiffs’ firms in the toxic tort arena. Those firms include Baron & Budd; Williams & Bailey; Provost & Umphrey; O’Quinn, Laminack & Pirtle; Hoffner, Bilek & Eidman; Waters & Kraus and a number of smaller plaintiffs’ firms which have broken off from each of those well known plaintiffs’ firms. They know that we are prepared to try their cases.

Appellate Experience in Asbestos and Silica Litigation

Because we are a litigation-only firm, we have gone to great lengths to develop an exceptionally strong appellate practice. Our appellate section includes a team of fully dedicated appellate lawyers and other attorneys who devote a significant amount of their time to appellate activities. Our appellate attorneys routinely advise and consult with trial counsel throughout the development of a case.

• Currently representing a large silica manufacturer in a case before the Texas Supreme Court that will clarify when a plaintiff’s cause of action accrues. This case will directly affect a variety of toxic tort matters involving latent occupational disease resulting from exposure to toxic substances in the workplace.
• Currently representing a client in a Texas Supreme Court case that will clarify the law with respect to when a manufacturer’s duty to warn is triggered in silica exposure cases.
• Represented the respondent in Texas Supreme Court, in an appeal based on the plaintiffs’ claim that the trial court erroneously rendered judgment notwithstanding the jury verdict. The firm represented the defendants in the underlying product liability litigation, based on the plaintiff’s exposure to asbestos in the workplace.
• Currently representing the petitioner in Texas Supreme Court in an appeal based on a trial court order that erroneously excluded expert testimony and other evidence favorable to defense during trial. The plaintiffs’ product liability claims are based on exposure to silica in the workplace.

Motor Vehicle Products Liability Litigation

Throughout the firm’s history, our significant trial experience in complex products liability litigation has emphasized automotive products liability. Our trial work has included single vehicle rollovers, multiple vehicle rollovers, crashworthiness, glazing, roof structure integrity, tires, child safety restraints, restraint systems generally, and seat back liability issues. Vehicles involved in these claims have ranged from SUVs to motor homes.

We often counter the actions of plaintiffs in wrongful death or injury cases who conduct “forum shopping” in venues with no direct ties to their accident claims. Because these liability claims frequently seek class action status, our lawyers have developed effective defense strategies such as helping a tire manufacturer develop a nationwide strategy for coordinating discovery in products liability lawsuits. In another lawsuit that sought class status for SUV owners who alleged that the brakes on their vehicles wore out prematurely, we reached a pre-trial settlement involving class certification. 

• Represented an automotive manufacturer in a case alleging serious injury and death from claimed rollover defects in a sport utility vehicle.  Case settled prior to trial.
• Represented a foreign automotive manufacturer who also manufactured ATVs in a products liability case involving a four-wheel ATV rollover accident wherein the vehicle rolled over on the side of a mountain on top of the plaintiff and pinned him for several hours, resulting in serious personal injury.  Case settled  prior to trial.
• Represented a foreign automotive manufacturer in a case alleging that rollover defects in a sport utility vehicle caused the driver's death when the vehicle rolled off an overpass and landed on the ground below.  Case settled prior to trial.
• Represented a foreign automotive manufacturer in a case concerning the death of a driver due to head injuries, and trauma to an 8-year-old passenger, in a four-wheel ATV rollover accident.   Case settled prior to trial.
• Represented a truck manufacturer in a products liability and breach of warranty case over alleged engine and transmission defects.  There were both personal injury and loss of business claims. We filed pre-trial motions against the plaintiff’s experts and partial motions for summary judgment due to the plaintiff’s own admissions in deposition.  The case settled prior to trial.
• Represented a truck manufacturer in an accident case involving back and neck injuries allegedly from defective components (suspension and air ride seats). Our evidence included a surveillance video of the plaintiff and information discovered in the medical records of a previous back injury.  The case settled prior to trial.
• Represented a chassis manufacturer in the trial of a products liability case for breach of warranty and defective product allegations involving an RV accident.
• Represented a truck manufacturer in a products liability case involving severe back and neck injuries from allegedly defective suspension and chassis components.  The case settled prior to trial.  The plaintiffs later pursued action against the component part suppliers and the dealer who added after-market components.
• Represented a truck manufacturer in a serious personal injury (partial paralysis) case involving an alleged defect in the cab over a truck engine.  At the pre-trial hearing our lawyers challenged one of the plaintiff’s key experts who was not going to be allowed to testify, and prepared motions to exclude several key exhibits and trial witnesses not timely identified.  The case settled after the hearing.
• Represented an automotive manufacturer in numerous DTPA and breach of warranty cases involving the following components: engines, brakes, transmissions, seat belts, air bags, windshields, and electrical components.
• Represented a truck manufacturer in a products liability and breach of warranty case involving loss of business and property damage claims due to alleged defects in engine, transmission, and electrical components on the truck.  The case settled prior to trial. The case was then tried by a co-defendant dealer on misrepresentation and negligent repair claims.
• Represented an automotive manufacturer in an electrical fire case.  The case involved loss of business and property damage.  Our experts found after-market electrical equipment added by the plaintiff caused the fire. The plaintiff’s expert had not even inspected the equipment or electrical control panel box.
•  Represented foreign and domestic automotive manufacturers in a large class action case involving alleged brake and brake pad defects in one of their SUV models manufactured in the U.S. and Japan over a several-year period. Our lawyers challenged class representatives, opposed attempts to certify a nationwide class, used multiple customer surveys to identify a smaller group of plaintiffs who qualified for payment, and applied aggressive research and briefing of all states’ laws to limit class certification to Texas.  We also worked closely with all experts on defense of product defect allegations and vehicle testing.  The case ended in settlement.
• Represented an automotive manufacturer in DTPA and breach of warranty cases involving engine malfunctions, seat back issues, inadvertent air bag deployment, and transmission malfunctions.  The cases were resolved through motions for summary judgment and through settlement.
• Represented automotive manufacturers, large truck manufacturers, and a chassis manufacturer in Lemon Law proceedings before administrative law judges throughout the state of Texas.