The King of Torts

Grisham’s novel centers around torts—a legal term for a wrongful act that causes harm to someone else, resulting in a civil lawsuit for the recovery of damages. Torts are distinct from breaches of contract (where someone deliberately violates a mutual agreement) and crimes (where someone commits an act punishable by the state, regardless of its impact on others). Tort plaintiffs (those claiming harm) can be individuals, as in the 1928 case Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Company, where the plaintiff was injured because of the defendant’s failure to foresee safety risks on their property, or they can be groups or classes of people, such as in the 2004 case Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange v. Dow Chemical Company, where Vietnamese plaintiffs sought restitution from the US manufacturers of herbicides weaponized during the Vietnam War. In such cases, numerous individuals consolidate their claims against a single entity.

The King of Torts is set against the backdrop of the contentious debate over tort reform in the US during the late 1990s and early 2000s. High-profile cases involving products like asbestos, tobacco, and pharmaceuticals led to multi-billion-dollar settlements and created a new class of ultra-wealthy trial lawyers. In response, business advocacy groups like the US Chamber of Commerce launched campaigns for “tort reform,” arguing that excessive lawsuits and “jackpot justice” were disrupting US businesses. The novel’s fictional Dyloft case directly parallels the real-world litigation over the diet drug combination Fen-Phen, which was pulled from the market in 1997 after being linked to heart valve damage, resulting in a multi-billion-dollar class-action settlement. Grisham channels the public perception of these lawyers through the “Circle of Barristers,” a group of litigators who boast about their private jets. One lawyer underscores the competitive nature of their work, telling Clay, “We’re sharks, okay, nothing but vultures. The race is on for the courthouse” (170). Clay’s transformation into the “King of Torts” illustrates the immense wealth generated by this legal specialty, forcing readers to consider the ethics of a system where “justice” and profit are deeply intertwined.

While The King of Torts dramatizes a widespread view of mass-tort litigation as a form of legal profiteering, many legal commentators note that mass torts can be the only effective means of holding corporations to account for large-scale harms. Mass-tort litigation has led to billions of dollars in settlements from DuPont, 3M, and other producers of PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) that enter groundwater and food supply chains, causing diffuse and lasting harm. To name a recent, high-profile example, 3M reached a settlement in 2024 in which the corporation agreed to pay up to $10.3 billion to clean up public water systems contaminated by PFAS (“3M Settlement With Public Water Suppliers to Address PFAS in Drinking Water Receives Final Court Approval.” 3M, 1 Apr. 2024).