This month, we discuss Caronia v. Philip Morris USA,1 in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit certified two questions to the New York State Court of Appeals that seek to determine whether New York recognizes an independent cause of action for medical monitoring. The decision, authored by Judge Amalya L. Kearse and joined by Judges Raymond J. Lohier Jr. and Christopher F. Droney, dismissed plaintiffs' traditional product liability claims as time-barred, but left open the possibility that their claims could be brought as a new type of action. That possibility hinges on whether there exists an independent cause of action under New York law for the medical monitoring of plaintiffs whose risk for serious illness was increased by a defendant's product. The Second Circuit will revisit the opinion once the Court of Appeals has answered the certified questions.
Background
Plaintiffs are a group of smokers aged 50 and over who either currently smoke Marlboro cigarettes, a product manufactured by defendant Philip Morris, or ceased smoking them within one year before filing their lawsuit on Jan. 19, 2006. Plaintiffs all smoked Marlboro cigarettes for at least 20 pack-years; their complaints explained that a pack-year is "the number of packs of cigarettes smoked per day multiplied by the number of years."2 Smoking one pack of cigarettes per day for one year would equate to one pack-year, smoking two packs per day for one year would be two pack-years, and so on.
