Should a company consider a confidentiality provision when settling with a plaintiff over a hazardous product?
Confidentiality provisions have their place, but a business should not attempt to hide information about a potentially dangerous product. Instead, businesses should be careful how they produce and market products, and how they react to knowledge about potential harm from a consumer’s use of their products. The company with a policy or protocol for being proactive in this regard avoids the need to conceal public harm. Not every claim where damage is alleged is deemed to be a public hazard. For example, economic damages resulting from allegedly wrongful conduct is not subject to the Sunshine in Litigation Act. Economic losses are not considered to be hazardous. I think the whole issue deals with corporate wisdom rather than morality or philosophy. The wisdom lies in knowing Florida’s Sunshine in Litigation Act, and recognizing that if it’s conceivable for a product to be deemed a public hazard, the business should take steps other than concealment to mitigate the perception of danger. In
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