Legal Newsline interviews Pacific Legal Foundation attorney Timothy Sandefur, who says it isn't all that outrageous, given recent history, to imagine "Big Caffeine" as the next Big Tort target.

"It's like the weather, you really can't tell what's going to happen; but the caffeine idea is not beyond the realm of imagination...It's a product that, just like tobacco, can be portrayed as some kind of diabolical thing being used against innocent people by wealthy corporations."

Sandefur said caffeine's image can be "manipulated and abused" to suit individual needs.

"If you said in 1970 or 1980, that people are going to bring enormous lawsuits against tobacco companies, accuse them of fooling people into smoking cigarettes and then use that as a pretext to take a lot of money from them to run government programs, people would have laughed at you," he said. "They would have said 'of course, people choose, as a matter of their own decision-making, whether or not to smoke'. Nonetheless the lawsuits happened; and I think caffeine is a plausible new target."

Sandefur cites litigation against gun makers, lead paint companies and fast food restaurants as examples in which plaintiff's attorneys were more interested in lining their pockets with cash than improving public health and safety.

The article includes an interesting discussion on the relationship between tort reform and regulatory expansion.