Liability forecasting plays an important role in mass tort settlements. One effect of the four-decades-long asbestos litigation is that defendants in mass tort cases often create large settlement trusts through which they compensate current and future claimants for...
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Leveraging Data to Negotiate Stronger Mass Tort Settlements
As with the other cases they litigate, plaintiffs’ attorneys will enter mass tort settlement negotiations in a case determined to secure maximum compensation for their injured clients. But mass tort cases, for a number of reasons, are more complex to litigate and...
High Reliability Organizations and Law Firms
High Reliability Organizations (“HRO”) are institutions that operate in complex, hazardous environments, making few mistakes (i.e., medical errors, air traffic errors) over long periods of time. HROs have existed since the 1980s in the aircraft carrier, air traffic...
Plaintiffs File Transfer Motion in Bard PowerPort Litigation
On May 24, 2023, plaintiffs filed a Motion to Transfer Actions with the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) against C.R. Bard Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Becton Dickinson and Company, the designer, manufacturer and seller of implanted port...
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Dismisses LTL Management Case
On Friday, July 28, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Michael Kaplan of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey dismissed the Chapter 11 case filed by Johnson & Johnson’s talc unit, LTL Management LLC, stating that the debtor did not meet the requirements...
Leadership Appointed for Camp Lejeune Water Contamination Litigation
In an order filed on July 19, judges for the U.S.D.C. for the Eastern District of North Carolina appointed the following counsel to serve as members of the leadership group for the Camp Lejeune water contamination litigation: Lead...
Successful Claimant Engagement with Mass Tort Clients
We recently explained how mass tort law firms can fix their claimant engagement struggles by taking a relationship-based approach to the process. In that post, we suggested firms can avoid these struggles by regularly and proactively communicating with their clients...
3M Reaches 10.3B PFAS Contamination Settlement Agreement
On June 22, chemical manufacturing giant 3M Co. reached a settlement agreement with attorneys representing 300 cities, towns and public water systems across the country over claims that the per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances found in the company’s products...
Are you budgeting your QSF expenses properly—if not that can be a problem
In mass tort litigation and other complex, multi-party litigation, Qualified Settlement Funds (QSFs) are often used to collect and house settlement proceeds from settling defendants while allocations, financial planning, and lien resolution for the settling plaintiffs...
Surgeon General Health Advisory on Risks of Social Media Addiction
On May 23, the United States Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, as part of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), published a new health advisory that warns of the mental health risks involved in social media addiction by children and...