The traditional definition of torts involves bizarre, idiosyncratic events where a single plaintiff with a physical impairment sues the specific defendant he believes to have wrongfully caused that malady. Yet public attention has focused increasingly on mass personal-injury lawsuits over asbestos, cigarettes, guns, the diet drug fen-phen, breast implants, and, most recently, Vioxx. Richard A. Nagareda’s Mass Torts in a World of Settlement is the first attempt to analyze the lawyer’s role in this world of high-stakes, multibillion-dollar litigation.

These mass settlements, Nagareda argues, have transformed the legal system so acutely that rival teams of lawyers operate as sophisticated governing powers rather than litigators. His controversial solution is the replacement of the existing tort system with a private administrative framework to address both current and future claims. This book is a must-read for concerned citizens, policymakers, lawyers, investors, and executives grappling with the changing face of mass torts.

“The book is a major scholarly contribution that is crisply written, highly informative, and innovative in both analysis and prescription. It provides unparalleled coverage of many of the important mass torts, including the litigation strategies and associated issues of civil procedure, bankruptcy law, and insurance. Both legal academics and practicing attorneys—indeed, anyone interested in litigation—will find this book to be compelling.”

“Richard Nagareda masterfully brings the world of tort law into the modern era. This book analyzes meticulously how far we have come from the formative account of a tort suit as a one-off, individual trial in which an injured party would typically seek compensation from a stranger encountered by chance. In its place, we have the statistical certainty of harm to unknown parties by products set adrift in the marketplace of mass society in which trials are few and claims administration becomes the norm. Nagareda introduces us to this complicated world of complex litigation and its inhabitants, from the entrepreneurial lawyers to the insurers, actuaries and epidemiologists, and to the lag between the real world of tort law and formal legal doctrine. An indispensable read for anyone interested in the real world of how injured individuals are compensated in mass American society.”

“If there is any justice, Nagareda's new book will transform the long-running debate about how to think about, and then to reform, mass torts. Building on his own earlier work and that of many other scholars, he maps the field and then provides a deeply informed, clear-eyed analysis of its underlying litigation and settlement dynamics and the very serious problem that they create: a divergence between the goal of justice for present and future victims and their lawyers' incentive. Most important, he offers an ingenious and attractive public law solution to what he properly sees as a public law problem—and shows us how to achieve it. Mass Torts in a World of Settlement is required reading for scholars in the field.”