Catrett

Catrett v. Johns-Manville Corp. (1989) is a U.S. Supreme Court case that clarified how to evaluate whether a defendant's exposure caused a plaintiff's injury, especially in cases with multiple possible sources. The Court held that if a plaintiff shows it’s more likely than not that a defendant’s contribution caused the injury, then the defendant can be held liable, even without pinpointing the exact amount of exposure from that defendant. This decision helped establish a fairer way to handle complex cases where multiple factors could have caused harm, emphasizing the importance of burden of proof and the need for evidence to support causation.