The saga over the illegality defense in Kansas appears to have run its course, and as in previous chapters, the defense has prevailed. The Tenth Circuit has ruled that the defense of illegality exists under Kansas law and that it applies to product liability claims. As we reported here and here, this is the
A few years ago, we detailed the efforts of the plaintiffs’ bar to tweak the Restatement of Torts to decrease the chance that a suit for damages would be defeated because the plaintiff engaged in a criminal act. The Restatement (Second) from 1979 called this the Wrongful Acts Doctrine, but the concept has a long
We write today with an update on a case applying the defense of illegality (or “in pari delicto”) to cut off product liability claims under Kansas law. Messerli v. AW Distributing, Inc. is the sad case of someone who passed away, allegedly as a result of inhaling intoxicating fumes (or “huffing”) from computer
We don’t see the defense of illegality much in the product liability space, but when a plaintiff’s claims arises from his or her own illegal behavior, the illegality defense can be a powerful tool. We mention this now because a district court in Kansas recently applied the illegality defense to dismiss a case based on