Governments, Citizens, and Injurious Industries

In this Article, Professors Hanoch Dagan and James White study the most recent challenge raised by mass torts litigation: the interference of governments with the bilateral relationship between citizens and injurious industries. Using the tobacco settlement as their case study, Dagan and White explore the important benefits and the grave dangers of recognizing governments’ entitlement to reimbursement for costs they have incurred in preventing or ameliorating their citizens’ injuries. They further demonstrate that the current law can help capture these benefits and guard against the entailing risks, showing how subrogation law can serve as the legal foundation of the governments’ claims, and how takings law can be used as a check against governmental abuse.