Pushing Regulation Through Litigation to the Edge: The Gaming Industry, Fast Food and Alcoholic Beverages

With their appetites whetted by the $206 billion multistate tobacco settlement, state attorneys general are launching tort law cases against a variety of industries: lead paint manufacturers, gun makers, fast-food outlets, the alcoholic beverage industry, and the gaming industry. And it’s not likely to end with these industries. The array of potential targets is virtually unlimited.

The litigation is not limited to the recovery of damages; it also includes changing the very nature of the specific industry involved. There are many dangers inherent in this “regulation by litigation,” not the least of which is that attorneys general and complicit judges are taking the law-making process—once the prerogative of elected legislators—into their own hands.