4. In 1979, Viet Nam veterans, their spouses, and their children filed a federal lawsuit in the Eastern District of New York alleging injury from the veterans’ exposure to Agent Orange, a phenoxy herbicide that the military used in South East Asia. Defendants were private companies alleged to have designed, manufactured, or marketed the chemical. The lawsuit was consolidated for pretrial purposes with six hundred similar cases filed nationwide. See Comment,Procedural History of the Agent Orange Product Liability Litigation, 52 Brooklyn L. Rev. 335 (1986). The trial court denied a motion to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, finding that plaintiffs’ claims arose under federal common law and so federal question jurisdiction was available. The Second Circuit reversed, finding no

“identifiable” federal policy, and so no basis for fashioning a federal common law rule of decision. In re “Agent Orange” Product Liability Litigation, 506 F. Supp. 737, 741–

42 (E.D.N.Y. 1979), reversed 635 F.2d 987, 995 (2d Cir. 1980), certiorari denied 454 U.S.

1128, 102 S.Ct. 980, 71 L.Ed.2d 116 (1981). After many years of litigation, including disputes as to whether Klaxonforeclosed the federal court from applying a national conflicts rule, plaintiffs’ claims were dismissed under the government contractor defense. See In re Agent Orange Product Liability Litigation, 517 F.3d 76 (2d Cir. 2008).