Maybe I’m just simple-minded but I don’t see any reason that the words “among class members” add anything to the previous words. The main rule of drafting, ignored by most lawyers at their peril, is the fewer words the better. But all these thousand dollar an hour lawyers believe they have to think and provide for every possible kind of contingency and in doing so just give the other guy words to argue about. Looks to me like botched drafting. Further if DuPont’s argument is correct why didn’t they spell that out when the agreement was prepared? If anything was important enough to be spelled out that was, not the ambiguous “among” terminology that was used.
Admittedly, there’s got to be a lot more to this than what’s in the article so maybe I’m all wet. No question product liability law has resulted in any number of silly judgments favoring plaintiffs, DuPont and others paying the piper, big time and keeping many valuable products off the market given the risk/reward calculus. Evidently the beat goes on.
Maybe I’m just simple-minded but I don’t see any reason that the words “among class members” add anything to the previous words. The main rule of drafting, ignored by most lawyers at their peril, is the fewer words the better. But all these thousand dollar an hour lawyers believe they have to think and provide for every possible kind of contingency and in doing so just give the other guy words to argue about. Looks to me like botched drafting. Further if DuPont’s argument is correct why didn’t they spell that out when the agreement was prepared? If anything was important enough to be spelled out that was, not the ambiguous “among” terminology that was used.
Admittedly, there’s got to be a lot more to this than what’s in the article so maybe I’m all wet. No question product liability law has resulted in any number of silly judgments favoring plaintiffs, DuPont and others paying the piper, big time and keeping many valuable products off the market given the risk/reward calculus. Evidently the beat goes on.