1E9Ct5D

Catastrophic Litigation:Lessons from Defending Headline Cases 1I. What is “Catastrophic Litigation?”The term “catastrophic litigation” refers to complex claims that arise from a tragic,publicized disaster. Catastrophic litigation is intense, and will unleash a frenzy ofaccusations and responses, threatening to eclipse your business focus and monopolizeyour time and legal resources. Catastrophic litigation presents a significant risk ofexposure to your company, and could threaten its very survival. While specificcatastrophes and litigation that follows will differ in significant ways, they raisecompelling issues, and this panel and these materials offer recommendations on bestpractices and lessons learned that your business can draw on when needed.II.IntroductionIncreasingly in modern times, there is no such a thing as “just an accident” or an “act ofGod.” When something dramatic happens – when many people are injured and there isextensive damage and publicity – we now assume that high-stakes litigation againstsomebody will follow. This will happen in most places across the globe, and it does notmatter if you may be just a small actor in the tragedy. This will happen even if youbelieve you have strong defenses to both liability and causation. Victims will hirelawyers immediately, and quite often they will bring claims before the tragedy and its1 We are grateful for the panelists’ contributions to this topic and paper, written and edited by BentonBarton of the ALFA International firm of Hall and Evans, LLC of Denver, Colorado and Clark Asp of theALFA International firm of Naman, Howell, Smith & Lee, PLLC of Austin, Texas.