Tortious Toxics

In this Article we offer one small idea with potentially large implications. We propose the recognition arid development of a special tort for toxic exposures, where the exposures have not yet led to a physical illness such as cancer. We argue, in brief, that this new tort would, in one simple step, accomplish three things: it would address many of the problems with the courts\u27 current handling of toxic torts; it would consolidate the many overlapping causes of action now pressed in toxic tort cases into one single claim; and it would give expression to the real injury motivating these cases - a dignitary and autonomy-based harm, not a physical one