For the past few years, consumers have seen soaring costs across an array of items. Yearly inflation is stuck at nearly 3 percent despite efforts by the Trump administration to reduce red tape and allow companies to get products to market faster. One culprit (among many) behind stubborn inflation is dubious lawsuits against popular products and resulting “nuclear” verdicts being passed along to consumers. Tort reforms must strive for verdicts grounded in evidence, not the junk science increasingly monopolizing the courts. Consumers deserve a break from inflation cooked up in courtrooms.
In civil tort cases, verdicts often depend on expert testimony presented to the jury. When those expert witnesses use information that is not based on conclusions reached as a result of sound scientific methodology, the integrity of the justice system can be compromised.
Predictable problems arise when expert witnesses give testimony that is based on agenda-based science. And it happens all too often in civil cases, even though judges are expected to act as gatekeepers who ensure the testimony jurors hear is factual.
Highly publicized tort litigations involving the pharmaceutical blood thinner Pradaxa and Roundup weed killer resulted in settlements totaling hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars, even though the expert testimony presented by plaintiff witnesses was based on scientific evidence that was dubious at best. The safety of these products was verified by multiple studies and regulatory agencies. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency and a host of international organizations such as the European Food Safety Authority and the Joint Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)/World Health Organization (WHO) Meeting on Pesticide Residues (JMPR) have repeatedly concluded that glyphosate (the herbicide of concern in Roundup) is unlikely to be dangerous. However, one taxpayer-funded bureaucracy called the the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) almost always concludes that substances are carcinogenic. The agency even selectively edits out findings it doesn’t like in its reports.
Unfortunately, these faulty IARC findings repeatedly make their way into courtrooms. According to a recent analysis by law firm Nelson Mullins, “IARC classifications continue to spur litigation time and time again, and most courts still allow the findings of IARC Working Groups to provide bases for claims against corporate defendants in a wide variety of cases.” That’s a problem, especially when IARC refuses to allow scientists with disfavored opinions onto working groups to assess pivotal products such as gasoline.
This problematic process directly fuels mass tort litigations, which can bundle together thousands of individual plaintiffs. Tort reforms can remedy this situation by insisting on rigorous assessments of international bodies such as IARC before parties are allowed to introduce their work into evidence. Reforms should also cap awards to stem the avalanche of costly cases. Policymakers must act decisively to keep agenda-based, faulty science out of the courtroom and halt out-of-control verdicts. Households shouldn’t have to pay for discredited science.
Ross Marchand is a senior fellow for the Taxpayers Protection Alliance
