Product Liability and Mass Torts

Game Changers in Product Liability and Mass Tort Litigation

Clients turn to Dechert when facing their most complex product liability or toxic tort litigations

For more than four decades, our experienced litigators have helped clients successfully navigate the most complex, high-stakes and publicly-sensitive product liability, toxic tort, consumer class action and government plaintiff litigations. We consistently earn the highest accolades as outstanding mass tort defense specialists. Law360 has repeatedly named us “Practice Group of the Year” for Product Liability and for Life Sciences, the New York Law Journal named us “Litigation Department of the Year for Product Liability” and the American Lawyer named us a finalist for “Products Liability Department of the Year.” Chambers USA ranks us Band 1 for Nationwide Product Liability & Mass Torts: The Elite and Law360 has named our global litigation co-chair Mark Cheffo, as an “MVP of the Year in Product Liability.”

We combine deep industry experience with the resources of a cross-practice global team to provide strategic insight and full-service representation to multinational companies. We’ve secured wins in challenging cases in state and federal jurisdictions, often advising on issues of first impression and serving as lead and coordinating counsel. Our 70-member team includes acclaimed first-chair trial lawyers and leading science and appellate experts.

We have defended the largest federal MDLs and cross-jurisdictional product liability litigations in the country. Our trial teams handle the most important matters for our clients, including obtaining pretrial dismissals of entire MDLs involving hundreds and thousands of cases for Pfizer, Endo and Amgen and affirmances by the Third, Fourth, Sixth and Ninth Circuits of those dismissals. We are lead trial counsel in multiple MDL bellwether trials. Our diverse trial teams have earned top defense verdicts in trials relating to talc-based baby powder. We obtained complete dismissal with prejudice of a putative nationwide class action against Apple involving one of its products. We also serve as lead trial and settlement counsel for Purdue Pharma in the national opioid litigation, one of the largest and most complex civil litigations in U.S. history.

View Our Infographic "Advising on landmark mass torts cases for 50 years"

Key Contacts

Mark S. Cheffo

Partner New York
+1 212 698 3814 mark.cheffo@dechert.com
Douglas E. Fleming III

Partner New York
+1 212 649 8703 douglas.fleming@dechert.com
Jay Bhimani

Partner Los Angeles
+1 213 808 5712 jay.bhimani@dechert.com

Deep Experience Across Diverse Sectors

We have successfully defended thousands of individual cases and consumer class actions in all 50 states and in federal courts.

We have extensive experience litigating personal injury, toxic exposure, consumer fraud, insurance, punitive damages and medical monitoring class claims as national trial counsel. We specialize in leading and coordinating complex cross-jurisdictional matters. Courts regularly appoint us to serve in leadership roles in federal MDLs and state coordinated actions.

We excel in developing strategic approaches to cases brought by State Attorneys General and local governments asserting public nuisance, RICO and state law conspiracy claims. In addition, we regularly provide strategic advice and leadership on investigations, federal and state regulatory matters, including warnings and recall issues and communications.

Clients also rely on our deep industry-specific knowledge and experience to help them anticipate and mitigate litigation risks and protect their products and reputations.

Our lawyers represent clients in mass tort cases involving:
Pharmaceuticals and biologics	Agriculture products (including genetically modified corn)
Medical devices	Foods
Asbestos and talc	Alcoholic beverages
Cosmetics	Technology and consumer products (including computers and cell phones)
Chemicals (such as DDT, PCBs, dioxin, PFOA, PFOS and lead)	Tobacco and vaping products
Automobiles and automotive parts	Building materials

We know what the mass tort litigation process involves, how long cases take and how to build winning trial records. Our lawyers have won jury verdicts in courts around the country. For cases that do not get to trial, we have unmatched expertise advising clients on comprehensive resolution strategies that globally resolve mass litigations. Clients have selected our lawyers to negotiate many of the highest value multi-jurisdictional mass tort resolutions, including those relating to breast implants, hormone replacement, football and concussions and opioids.

Strategic Leadership and Creative Thinking

Our product liability and mass tort defense lawyers provide clients with comprehensive and long-view strategic guidance that enables them to make the tactical decisions that can positively shape their cases. Whether partnering with a client at a mass tort litigation’s start or coming in mid-crisis, we have the ability to think strategically at every turn and anticipate how opposing counsel and courts will respond. We reject a paint-by-numbers approach and consider clients’ needs holistically to help them anticipate and successfully address the most contentious issues – from spearheading defenses in complex disputes to protecting companies and their boards from challenges by shareholders to coordinating litigation decisions with a client’s regulatory and securities requirements.

A Deep Bench

Other firms may have a few strong leaders, but what sets Dechert apart is the depth, breadth and experience of our team. Many of us have worked together for decades, and we are able to harness the wide range of expertise in our product liability and mass tort defense group to proactively address clients’ multifaceted legal, business and communication needs in real time. Our agile and diverse team is highly respected by our peers, and we are able to staff cases with a deep roster of experienced lawyers with a proven commitment to client service.

Mastery of Science and Expert Strategies

Product liability cases often turn on the science and the admissibility of expert testimony on threshold legal issues such as causation. The importance of having a legal team that is knowledgeable in varied scientific fields, understands their complexities and nuances and can present scientific issues in an understandable way is paramount. We have served as national counsel and led science teams in litigations involving complex scientific issues in federal and state courts. From identifying and working with leading experts in their respective fields to cross-examining our adversaries’ experts and arguing and winning Daubert and Frye motions, our team is well-equipped to handle cases presenting the most challenging scientific issues.

For example, our team led the effort in two major federal MDLs where we successfully excluded the plaintiffs’ causation experts and obtained summary judgment in all cases – without a single case going to trial. See In re Lipitor (Atorvastatin Calcium) Mktg., Sales Practices & Prod. Liab. Litig. (No II) MDL 2502, 892 F.3d 624 (4th Cir. 2018); In re Zoloft (Sertraline Hydrochloride) Prod. Liab. Litig., 858 F.3d 787 (3d Cir. 2017); In re: Zoloft (Sertraline Hydrochloride) Prod. Liab. Litig., 2015 WL 7776911 (E.D. Pa. 2015); In re Zoloft (Sertraline Hydrochloride) Prod. Liab. Litig., 26 F. Supp. 3d 449 (E.D. Pa. 2014). We leveraged those federal victories to secure similar wins in coordinated state court litigations.

Environmental and Toxic Tort Expertise

Our team has years of experience developing creative solutions to the unique challenges of environmental and toxic tort litigation. Our lawyers have served as national coordinating counsel in some of the most important environmental tort cases in the country, including high-profile litigations involving PFOA/PFOS, dioxin, PCBs, genetically modified corn, ethylene oxide, MTBE, DDT, talc and asbestos. We have successfully defended these cases against an evolving regulatory backdrop and won landmark victories, including on threshold scientific questions of causation.

We currently serve as national lead defense counsel to a defendant involved in putative class action and personal injury lawsuits in multiple jurisdictions alleging harm from PFOA found in drinking water. In addition, the Dechert team serves as counsel to a chemical company in mass tort litigation in New York alleging that chemicals from multiple landfills have migrated to nearby homes. We also represent major cosmetic companies in talc cases nationwide.

Landmark Punitive Damages Decisions

In State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. v. Campbell, 538 U.S. 408 (2003), the leading U.S. Supreme Court case on punitive damages, we successfully persuaded the Court to vacate as unconstitutional a $145 million punitive damages award against State Farm. The Court held that as a general rule, a punitive damages award should not exceed a 9:1 ratio to compensatory damages and that where the compensatory award is substantial, a punitive damages award “at or near the amount of compensatory damages” may be all that is constitutionally permitted. The Court also adopted the principle that a punitive damages award may not be based on conduct that did not involve the plaintiff.

We continue to build on our victory in Campbell and represent numerous companies in challenging punitive damages awards in federal and state appellate courts. We also advise companies on how to minimize the risk of large punitive awards and establish a strong record for appeal from an adverse punitive damages verdict.

Appellate Victories

Clients regularly retain us to brief and argue their most significant appeals. In addition to punitive damages expertise, Dechert attorneys have significant appellate experience in mass tort matters, including securing U.S. Supreme Court precedent on medical monitoring claims and leading appellate decisions on scientific issues, including dose, statistical significance and clinical and animal studies.

Unique Capabilities in Attorney General and Government Litigation

State Attorneys General, other state agencies and local governments recently have taken on a substantial role as plaintiffs in product liability, toxic tort and mass tort litigations. Our team provides the unique insights that these highly public and high-pressured cases demand. This includes not only a deep understanding of how government offices work but also thoughtful approaches to the legal claims and defenses and to the communications and reputational issues that these cases raise. Through decades of litigating and negotiating with governmental plaintiffs, including recent experience defending cases brought by nearly every State Attorney General and by municipalities and counties across the country, we have developed unmatched capabilities in this area.

We have won motions to dismiss and successfully narrowed these often sweeping actions through creative jurisdictional, discovery and resolution strategies. For example, in the national opioid litigation, we secured statewide coordination of government cases in New York, Texas, Illinois, Pennsylvania and South Carolina, negotiated comprehensive case management and discovery orders around the country and achieved novel abatement-focused settlements that have been praised by healthcare experts.

Our practice also draws on the strength of Dechert’s white collar, compliance and investigations group, which represents clients before the Department of Justice (DOJ) and other federal agencies, Congress, state and local prosecutors and other government and regulatory bodies.

Our practice is enhanced by over 30 former U.S. attorneys, assistant U.S. attorneys and regulators who provide a wealth of government experience and in-depth knowledge of global regulatory authorities. Drawing on this experience, we guide major corporations, their boards and audit committees through extremely sensitive litigations and investigations. We have appeared for our clients in front of federal and state trial and appellate courts throughout the country, the U.S. Supreme Court and various regulatory agencies, including the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission.

Creative Defense of Challenging Class Actions

Our team has deep experience successfully defending against putative class actions involving our clients’ products. We have won dismissals of consumer class actions over alleged product harm, environmental class actions for medical monitoring and property damage and class actions by insurers and other third-party payors to recover payments for prescription pharmaceuticals. From case inception, we look for strategic ways to leverage key issues to defeat class actions, whether through advancing case-dispositive merits issues or developing a robust record of individual issues to preclude class certification. This includes a victory for Apple, where we defeated a wide-ranging class action involving one of its products as barred by federal preemption.

In the environmental space, we use all available strategies to bring cases into federal court, where we have combined Daubert and class certification principles to narrow claims and limit the ability to proceed as a class. And we have prevailed on the pleadings in insurer and third-party payor actions by advancing dispositive legal defenses such as preemption and remoteness.

Recent Awards and Accolades

“Houses impressive capabilities in the products liability and mass torts space, having bolstered its bench with a significant team of partners and associates that continues to attract new clients. Renowned for its expertise in toxic torts litigation and also possesses a wealth of experience representing major names in the pharmaceutical and chemical industries. Skillfully coordinates major multidistrict product liability litigation as well as offering notable prowess in appellate matters.” — Chambers USA 2023
Clients note: “They are very thorough in factual research, very knowledgeable in areas of law implemented, very diligent and creative in drafting arguments for clients and also take a strategic approach to solving clients' problem." — Chambers USA 2023
“Drawing upon a strong pool of experienced and up-and-coming talent on the East and West coasts, in particular, Dechert LLP is able to handle a wide variety and volume of defense matters for many leading pharma and medical devices clients, particularly in the context of large-scale MDLs/class actions. The firm regularly takes the lead role in such aggregated mandates, formulating core strategy decisions and regularly securing key victories through persuasive motions, as well as in litigation before juries.” — The Legal 500 US 2023
“Racking up defense wins in some of the year's most complex and far-reaching product liability cases and plunging into the nationwide multidistrict opioid litigation, Dechert LLP has earned a place as one of Law360's Product Liability Groups of the Year.” — Law360 Product Liability Group of The Year
“Dechert’s 70-lawyer PLMT group has a reputation for developing new defense strategies and for moving the law. The team has a lengthy track record of securing dismissals of entire MDLs before the trial of any case.” — New York Law Journal Litigation Department of the Year, Products Liability 2020