Law Center Search Results

The NAM filed an amicus brief in support of an application to the U.S. Supreme Court to stay a remand order transferring litigation involving “public nuisance” claims related to climate change to state court. Twenty-six energy company defendants in the case filed the stay request to allow appeals to progress on the question of which court has proper jurisdiction over the claims. The case is part of a coordinated, national litigation campaign involving over two dozen public nuisance cases filed in carefully chosen states and federal circuits by agenda-driven lawyers and activists. This issue is important to energy producers and all manufacturers because public nuisance claims involving climate change implicate federal questions and the preemption of federal laws that are appropriately heard by federal courts rather than state courts. The NAM’s amicus brief explained to the court the broader context of the plaintiffs’ legal strategy and that these suits implicate federal issues and therefore should be in federal court. Unfortunately, Chief Justice Roberts denied the stay petition. Thereafter, following the Fourth Circuit's decision to remand the case to state court, the NAM filed an amicus brief in support of BP's petition for cert. pressing the high court to resolve the circuit split regarding the scope of appellate review of remand orders involving the federal officer removal statute. Happily, on October 2, 2020, the Court granted review.

On November 23, the NAM filed an amicus brief on the merits in support of removal jurisdiction in this case, asking the Court to ensure that lower courts evaluate all grounds for removal prior to issuing remand orders.

On May 17, 2021, in a 7-1 decision with Justice Gorsuch writing for the majority, the Court reversed the Fourth Circuit’s denial of full federal appellate review of the important jurisdictional issues raised by this case and remanded the case for the Fourth Circuit to consider those issues in the first instance. Unfortunately, on April 7, 2022, the Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court's remand order, holding that none of the asserted basis for removal permit the Court to exercise jurisdiction.

On November 17, 2022, the NAM filed an amicus brief in support of the petitioners' petition to the U.S. Supreme Court for cert. The NAM's brief again argues that the subject matter and remedies sought through this litigation are inherently national, as well as legislative and regulatory in nature, and that such complex policy matters should not be driven by individual state judges in individual state courtrooms applying (or misapplying) various state liability laws.

Unfortunately, on April 24, 2023, the Court denied the petition.

The NAM filed an amicus brief in the Western District of Washington supporting a challenge to the federal government’s failure to fulfill its duty to timely process employment authorization documents for two classes of noncitizens who temporarily live in the United States: H-4 and L-2 visa-holders, the spouses of H-1B specialty-occupation workers and L-1 intra-company transferees, respectively. As detailed in the NAM’s brief, the government’s unjustified processing delays are currently freezing thousands of workers out of their employment, creating significant hardships both for families that rely on continued employment through H-4 and L-2 visas and for their employers—including many NAM members—that depend on the irreplaceable talents and knowledge of their H-4 and L-2 employees. The lawsuit seeks judicial intervention under the Administrative Procedure Act to compel the Department of Homeland Security to process H-4 and L-2 work authorizations with haste.

Happily the parties resolved the case prior to a court decision.

The NAM filed an amicus brief in the Fourth Circuit arguing that public nuisance litigation seeking to drive national energy policy on climate change should not be heard in state court. This case is part of a broader campaign involving more than two dozen cases that have been filed by cities, counties and states. The issue presented was whether putative state-law tort claims alleging harm from global climate change are removable because they arise under federal law.  The NAM's brief argues that the subject matter and remedies sought through this litigation are inherently national, as well as legislative and regulatory in nature, and that such complex policy matters should not be driven by individual state judges in individual state courtrooms applying (or misapplying) various state liability laws.

Unfortunately, on April 7, 2022, the Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court's remand order, holding that none of the asserted basis for removal permit the Court to exercise jurisdiction.

The NAM joined with 6 other organizations urging Maryland's highest court to affirm a lower court ruling that refused to hold a manufacturer liable for failing to disclose the hazards that arose from products made, sold or installed by another manufacturer. Under common law, manufacturers are only liable for hazards in their own products. We opposed the creation of a new duty to warn about hazards a manufacturer does not produce or put in its products.

Product liability law generally attaches to entities which participate in the chain of distribution of a product that causes harm because of a defect in that product but does not hold them liable for products made by others. Allowing for the reverse of this decision is unsound public policy. Such logic would require the manufacturers of staplers to be legally responsible every time a person is hurt due to a paper cut. Courts nationwide have almost uniformly held that a manufacturer has no duty to warn about hazards in a third-party’s asbestos-containing product. Consumer safety could be undermined by the potential for over-warning and through conflicting information that may be provided by manufacturers of different components and by makers of finished products.

This case specifically addresses a company’s liability due to another manufacturer creating products with asbestos. Roughly 100 companies have entered bankruptcy to address their asbestos liabilities. The bankruptcies established a privately funded personal injury compensation system of over 60 multi-billion dollar trusts. This system operates parallel to, but independent of, the civil tort system and provides substantial compensation to plaintiffs for harms caused by companies that were the largest asbestos defendants. Currently, the lack of coordination between the asbestos bankruptcy trust claim and civil tort systems can lead to “double dipping” as plaintiffs obtain tort recoveries for their injuries and then bring additional claims against asbestos trusts for the same injury.

Our amicus brief supported well-established law that a manufacturer of one product has no duty to warn about the alleged hazards of another's product. This is true even where the supplier knew its product may be integrated into another product that could cause harm.

Unfortunately, on Dec. 18, 2015, the court ruled 7-2 that "a manufacturer will have a duty to warn under negligence and strict liability when (1) its product contains asbestos components, and no safer material is available; (2) asbestos is a critical part of the pump sold by the manufacturer; (3) periodic maintenance involving handling asbestos gaskets and packing is required; and (4) the manufacturer knows or should know the risks from exposure to asbestos.” The court placed its principal justification on whether the injury was foreseeable. It also thought the burden on the manufacturer was negligible because the instruction manuals for the pumps "could easily have included in those manuals a warning that asbestos dust was dangerous, and a directive to wear protective gear. . . ." The duty on manufacturers announced in this case is intended to be "a narrow and limited duty." Presumably if asbestos were not the only product required for use with the pumps, the manufacturer would not have had to warm. It expressly declined to "extend the duty to warn to all instances when a manufacturer can foresee that a defective component may be used with its product."