Stratospheric Ozone Damage and Legal Liability: US public policy and tort litigation to protect the ozone layer

While government enforcement of laws and regulations to control the production of chloroflurocarbons in 1987 has been hailed as exemplifying the precautionary principle, for almost two decades US companies failed to take precautionary measures to prevent chemical emissions, despite the probable risk of stratospheric ozone loss. As a result, human harms in the form of skin cancer have reached epidemic proportions globally and in the United States where, today, one person dies every hour from skin cancer. This book reviews U.S. laws, regulations, and policies, as well as case law regarding similar toxic tort cases to consider whether companies can and should be held legally liable under tort common law theories and related tort justice theories for having contributed to increased risks of skin cancer.

1. Introduction 2. Case defendants and evidence 3. The plaintiffs, damages and liabilities 4. Negligence and strict product liability 5. Public Nuisance 6. Statutes of limitation and repose 7. Federal and State Law Pre-emption under the Clean Air Act 8. Regulatory compliance defence 9. Downstream liability question 10. Open and obvious risks 11. The basis for assessing why the ozone layer case is relevant and important 12. Tort law policy basis for the ozone layer case 13. Lessons and benefits for climate change policy and litigation 14. Conclusion