On April 26, 2001, the New York Court of Appeals issued a decision that declined to subscribe to a radically expanded view of tort law liability, the “market share” theory of liability, in run-of-the-mill tort cases. The decision was a victory for WLF, which filed a brief urging the court not to expand tort liability in that manner. Under a “market share” theory of liability, a plaintiff seeks to impose liability on a manufacturer based on its share of the market for the product that injured the plaintiff; it is pursued in cases in which there is no evidence regarding which manufacturer’s product caused the injury. The court agreed with WLF that market share liability undermines a bedrock principle of tort law that a manufacturer can be held liable in product liability actions only when the plaintiff can demonstrate that the manufacturer actually made the product that caused the injury.
