Harvard Law School Library Receives 
1970s-Era Dalkon Shield Litigation Papers

The voluminous collection of depositions, trial transcripts, and other documents assembled by plaintiff lawyers during the landmark mass tort Dalkon Shield case has been donated to the Harvard Law School Library by the Cleveland\Columbus, Ohio law firm of Brown & Szaller.

The Dalkon Shield litigation arose from allegations that the intrauterine birth device, sold between 1971 and 1914 by A.H. Robins Co. under the trade name Dalkon Shield, caused pelvic inflammatory disease that frequently resulted in sterility. More than 3.6 million units were sold before the product was removed from the market under government pressure in June 1974. Overwhelmed by claims that eventually numbered more than 400,000, Robins petitioned for bankruptcy in 1985, and under the direction of U.S. District Judge Robert Merhige, the Dalkon Shield Claimants Trust was established that paid out nearly $3 billion by the time it closed on April 30, 2000.

James F. Szaller, managing partner of Brown & Szaller, who has represented victims of the Dalkon Shield since 1975, assembled the materials, which occupy more than 185 linear feet of lateral file drawer space. Mr. Szaller states that the collection consists of "Multidistrict Litigation materials from the early 1970s (and subsequently when it reopened in the early 1980's), Robins' and plaintiff and defendant experts' depositions, a number of complete trial transcripts, an exhaustive compendium of the medical literature, much of the Robins bankruptcy docket, transcripts from the bankruptcy, and motions, pleadings, and other various materials generated in trials and arbitration against Robins and the Trust. During its term, the Depository proudly claimed membership of over 100 law firms throughout the world whose clients benefited from its materials."

Noting that "the Dalkon Shield case represents a landmark in the history of defective product litigation," Harvard Law School Librarian for Special Collections David Warrington says the gift is an extraordinary addition to the School's resources for the study and teaching of the law. Warrington, to whom queries should be addressed, says he expects the materials will be very valuable to legal scholars once the collection has been processed and opened for research.

The Harvard Law School Library maintains manuscript holdings of more than 125 Collections of the papers of such eminent jurists and legal educators as Oliver Wendell Holmes, Louis Brandeis, Felix Frankfurter, Learned Hand, Roscoe Pound, and Erwin Griswold. Additional collections document legal practice, civil liberties, major court cases, legal research, and legal education. Containing more than 1.5 million items, these collections comprise one of the country's preeminent resources for the study of nineteenth and twentieth century American legal history.

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