SCOTUS Inoculates Vaccine Makers Against Lawsuits
The Washington Times reports:
Vaccine manufacturers won a monumental victory Tuesday with theSupreme Court ruling that federal law shields them from lawsuits, an especially pertinent decision because of the thousands of claims, so far unproven scientifically, linking vaccines to autism.
In a 6-2 ruling, the high court said the manufacturers are protected by a 1986 federal law that says they can’t be sued “if the injury or death resulted from side effects that were unavoidable, even though the vaccine was properly prepared and was accompanied by proper directions and warnings.”
As was the case during oral arguments in October, much of the ruling hinged on the term “unavoidable” in the context of the law.
Lawyers seeking the right to sue vaccine manufacturers had argued that dangerous side effects are not “unavoidable” if the vaccine manufacturers could provide a different, safer vaccine.
Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote the majority opinion, disagreed sharply, saying the 1986 law pre-empts all design-defect claims against vaccine manufacturers brought by plaintiffs who seek compensation for injury or death caused by vaccine side effects.
“If a manufacturer could be held liable for failure to use a different design, the word ‘unavoidable’ would do no work,” Justice Scalia wrote. “A side effect of a vaccine could always have been avoidable by use of a differently designed vaccine not containing the harmful element.”
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