Stites & Harbison, PLLC

From offices in Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and Indiana, Stites & Harbison represents a broad cross-section of product manufacturers regionally and nationally. We are trial and appellate lawyers who focus on defending complex or high-profile lawsuits.

Stites & Harbison has significant experience with most consumer, commercial, and industrial products, including:

 Stites & Harbison is also involved in prevention and risk management activities aimed at reducing the incidence of product-related accidents while minimizing or preventing product liability lawsuits.

When lawsuits do occur, the firm's lawyers actively involve product manufacturers in developing  the most effective defenses. We also can coordinate the defense of product liability litigation on a regional and national basis, select local counsel, formulate sophisticated strategies, manage relevant and discoverable documents, identify and protect privileged documents, provide uniform discovery responses, prepare company employees for depositions, and develop expert witness testimony.  In addition, our lawyers are experienced in litigation budgeting, alternative fee arrangements, and cost effective management.

More than 20 attorneys with the firm, including members of this service group, are trained in the engineering disciplines and natural sciences.  Members of the group participate in all national organizations with an interest in the effective defense of product liability lawsuits, serve on editorial boards of industry publications, write and publish useful articles, and appear on national product liability panels and programs.

Recent Experience

A team of attorneys is defending DuPont, one of the nation’s leading chemical manufacturers, in ten cases involving over 300 personal injury claims allegedly due to two alleged releases of the chemical Oleum from DuPont industrial facilities.

The firm represents industrial packaging company Exel, Inc., in multi-million dollar insurance coverage litigation arising out of the catastrophic explosion of the CTA Acoustics facility in Laurel County, Kentucky, that caused multiple deaths of and injuries to CTA employees.

Defending Stryker Corporation in a products liability action, lawyers in Indiana successfully removed a state court action to federal court and thwarted plaintiff’s attempt to remand the action.  The federal court subsequently entered summary judgment on Stryker’s behalf.

Following the tragic loss of Comair Flight 5191 in August 2006, and the deaths of 49 people in Lexington, Kentucky, members of the firm’s aviation practice mobilized to be at the accident scene and to represent the interests of Bluegrass Airport.

In 2006, a jury found in favor of our physician-client accused of negligently prescribing medication that caused a 35 year old patient to suffer a significant brain injury.

Product liability lawyers from the Louisville office are in the third year of representing Pfizer Inc. in dozens of Kentucky lawsuits alleging injury from the use of the prescription medications Celebrex^® and Bextra^®.

In an appellate representation, the firm was engaged post-verdict to appeal a $3.57 million judgment against Haven Steel Products arising from the near amputation of a farmer’s leg by a field mower.

A multi-office legal team is actively defending American Optical Corporation, a manufacturer of respiratory protection equipment, in nearly 2,000 individual claims asserted in the past six years by coal miners claiming personal injury.

A team of lawyers and engineers is in its seventh year as national counsel for Boston Scientific Corporation in  medical device claims involving the Rotablator^® Rotational Atherectomy System.

In litigation through the southeast and mid-west, we continue to defend Howmedica Osteonics Corp. in product liability claims alleging injury from prosthetic implants and orthopedic hardware. 

A Nashville-based team representing Terumo Medical in a product liability case persuaded a federal court to restrict plaintiffs’ discovery to the model of heart-lung machine used during surgery and to bar access to information about later versions and models.