CMA to Appellate Court: Correct Error That Led to $760 Million Verdict.

SACRAMENTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 17, 1998--The California Manufacturers Association (CMA) today issued the following statement regarding the ongoing Lockheed litigation against defendant chemical manufacturers.

The statement corresponds with a Supreme Court determination late Wednesday to remand the out-of-control Lockheed litigation to the Court of Appeals in order to correct errors in the largest and most costly toxic tort case in California history.

"The decision by the California Supreme Court to send the case back to the Court of Appeals is important, as it will impact businesses in this state and across the nation," said Jack Stewart, president of the California Manufacturers Association.

The Supreme Court had been petitioned to review the "group two" trial of the long-running Lockheed litigation, in which the judge allegedly exhibited "extreme bias" and ordered a shifting of the burden of proof on causation to the defendants, among other things.

Simultaneously, the Court of Appeal Second Appellate District asked the Supreme Court to return the case in order to correct the burden of proof order that had been given over several phases of trial by Superior Court Judge Richard Hubbell.

Judge Hubbell, who last week recused himself from future cases, gained national notoriety in August, when he encouraged the jury to "send a notice out to the world" with their punitive damages verdict in the most recent phase of trial. The jury returned a $760 million verdict.

CMA had filed an amicus letter with the Supreme Court in support of the petition for review.

"The directions from the Superior Court judge that put the burden of proof on defendants must be corrected," Stewart said. "Placing a defendant in the position of proving a product did not cause an injury as opposed to the plaintiff proving that it did cause injury is absurd, against all tenets of American law, and a clear disincentive to doing business in California."

In this 12-year-old litigation, plaintiffs allege injuries due to toxic exposure to products used at Lockheed's top-secret Skunk Works facility in Burbank in the 1950s and '60s during construction of the government's spy planes and bombers.

"This is by far the most complex, costly and out-of-control civil action in the history of California," said Stewart. "This case represents some of the most serious problems in our civil justice system, particularly when the presumption is supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around."