Trial Magazine

While I was writing this column, a jury unanimously held Monsanto Co. responsible for its Roundup weed killer causing a California man’s cancer. AAJ members and lead attorneys Jennifer Moore and Aimee Wagstaff fought for Edwin Hardeman, who had used Roundup for decades on his property. “Companies should no longer put products on the market for anyone to buy without being truthful, without testing their product, and without warning if it causes cancer,” Moore said in response to the verdict.

Truth is fundamental. It underscores AAJ’s mission and everything that its members do. It’s what trial lawyers fight to uncover when corporations make decisions that injure or kill. We demand to know who is accountable, and we want to make sure it doesn’t happen to someone else.

We go after the Goliaths one at a time, knowing that as one falls, there will be another—making calculations about whether a problem should be fixed or ignored; whether the cost of harming consumers is an absorbable business expense; or whether to adjust data on research and hope no one ever finds out. All too often, the Goliaths fail to act in the interest of safety and transparency.

The articles in this month’s issue of Trial highlight the myriad areas of people’s daily lives that are affected by corporate misconduct: nursing home negligence and the vicarious liability of parent companies (p. 18); deceptive financial practices that hurt Americans’ investments and retirement savings (p. 26); inadequate cybersecurity to protect sensitive personal data (p. 36); and defective guns (p. 42).

Year after year, AAJ also publishes reports detailing bad corporate behavior and reinforcing that it is trial lawyers who are the consumers’, workers’, and patients’ last line of defense when corporations skirt the law. AAJ has published more than 30 research reports, including “Worst Corporate Conduct”; “From Accutane to Zonite: A History of Dangerous Drugs & Devices Marketed to Women”; “Driven to Safety: Robot Cars and the Future of Liability”; and “Forced Arbitration.” You can read the reports at www.justice.org/research.

To help AAJ members streamline their case preparation and learn about new areas of litigation, AAJ staff attorneys work with members to develop Litigation Packets—more than 150 are currently available on the AAJ Exchange.

For example, earlier this year AAJ published its Roundup Herbicide Litigation Packet. It contains more than 3,000 pages of documents from recent state court litigation and federal multidistrict litigation, including complaints, motions, depositions of corporate witnesses, and previously sealed documents showcasing Monsanto’s misconduct.

And if you’re handling cases against nursing homes, big box chain stores, or drug and device manufacturers, the Exchange has many other Litigation Packets that can help. For a full list, visit www.justice.org/litigationpackets.

I’m proud to be a member of AAJ because of the way we readily share our knowledge to hold corporations accountable for their misconduct. And as endless as the line of Goliaths seems to be, we, in our commitment to demand accountability, will knock them back at every turn.

Elise R. Sanguinetti is a partner at Arias Sanguinetti Wang & Torrijos in Oakland, Calif. She can be reached at elise.sanguinetti@justice.org.