Christin Eaton Garcia primarily defends drug companies in products liability actions. Her practice also includes personal injury and environmental toxic tort defense. She provides her clients with sound strategic guidance, grounded in an intuitive understanding of complex legal, regulatory and scientific issues. She seeks dismissal strategies for her clients, through a creative yet rigorous application of the juncture between science and the law. This often includes working with defense expert witnesses and challenging plaintiffs' experts.
Christin serves as a national science counselor to Novartis in its hormone therapy litigation. In the Zelnorm litigation for Novartis, Christin led the offensive discovery team and also shared significant responsibility during the discovery phase for presenting defense expert testimony, challenging plaintiff expert testimony and presenting company witnesses. Christin previously represented Wyeth in the diet drug litigation, participating on both the offensive discovery and expert witness teams. Earlier in her career, Christin successfully led the defense of numerous premises and products liability cases for distributors in the propane and natural gas industries, resulting in many summary judgment dismissals.
Accomplishments include:
- Mahr v. Cenex, et al., Minnesota District Court. Obtained summary judgment for a propane wholesaler in an explosion case involving design defect, failure to warn, inadequate training and related claims. The ruling involved the extension of the bulk supplier doctrine into Minnesota law, defining and limiting a wholesaler's obligations to police its retail customers' warnings and safety programs.
- Mitchell Bros., Inc. v. Cenex, United States District Court, Southern District of Iowa. Developed facts and strategy, prepared and argued detailed Daubert motion based on inadequacy of plaintiff's scientific expert work. The case was resolved before a ruling was issued.
- Plaintiffs v. SuperAmerica, Minnesota District Court. Obtained summary judgment in three separate tort cases brought against SuperAmerica, with issues involving various aspects of the liability of a premises owner to its customers.
- Cooper v. Lakewood Engineering and Manufacturing Company, et al., United States District Court, District of Minnesota, and the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. Associated extensively with her partners in enforcing a limitation of liability agreement and obtaining summary judgment for the parent company of a dissolved electrical motor manufacturer in a wrongful death case. The case presented issues of contract interpretation, successor products liability and the liability of a parent corporation for the acts of its subsidiary, and was affirmed by the Eighth Circuit at 45 F.3d 243 (8th Cir. 1995).