According to an article in Law.com, one major court has ruled that parents of an autistic child may sue vaccine makers based on the theory that thimerosal (a mercury preservative) in vaccines caused their child's autism. Earlier, similar cases in New York and Pennsylvania were denied by courts in those states.

This is a potentially explosive decision.

Until now, vaccine-makers were protected from civil suits under the federal National Childhood Vaccine Injury Compensation Act of 1986. That act, which exempted vaccine-makers from liability in the case of "unavoidable" vaccine injury, also created the no-fault Vaccine Court. Thousands of families with autistic children are now in the process of claiming vaccine damage through that court.

In this case, however, the court found that the alleged vaccine injury was NOT unavoidable, because "In their suit, the Ferraris [the family filing suit] claim that the drug's design, specifically the use of thimerosal as a preservative, was flawed and that its alleged side effects could have been avoided had another preservative been used."

Here's how the article describes the decision:
The Supreme Court of Georgia on Monday upheld a state appeals court ruling that could open the door to product liability claims against vaccine manufacturers by the parents of autistic children.

Justice George H. Carley wrote for a unanimous court that a Fulton County suit against manufacturers filed by the parents of an autistic child may to go to trial. The justices rejected what Carley described as a "far-reaching interpretation" of a federal vaccine statute that defendant vaccine manufacturers argued gave them sweeping immunity from liability.

Carley suggested that the U.S. Supreme Court may be asked to consider the question.
Of course, the question of whether the Ferrari's MAY file suit is bound to be separate from the question of whether they will win. At this point in history, a link between thimerosal and autism has grown increasingly tenuous. While it is clear that thimerosal itself is a toxic substance, there is very little evidence to suggest that it is the direct cause of huge rise in autism diagnoses.