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...
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...
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...
Four Ways the Texas Two-Step Changes How Plaintiffs Litigate Mass Torts
By enabling defendants to shield themselves from mass tort liability, the “Texas Two-Step” is a new obstacle for plaintiffs pursuing mass tort cases against manufacturers of dangerous products. For the uninitiated, the Texas Two-Step is a bankruptcy process in which a...
Debunking Four Misconceptions About Mass Tort Litigation Support
When lawyers first begin to represent clients in mass tort cases, grow the number of mass tort cases they’re involved in, or increase the number of mass tort clients they represent, they often come to a stark realization. To effectively—and ethically—represent their...
J&J’s LTL Management Bankruptcy and Talc Litigation Update
On September 19, 2022, oral argument was held before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia during which attorneys for talcum litigation injury victims urged the Court to allow their clients to pursue their claims against Johnson & Johnson maintaining...
Social Media Addiction Lawsuits Consolidation Update
On August 20, 2022, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, asked the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) to consolidate a number of social media addiction lawsuits filed by plaintiffs who have targeted the company, alleging they have...
Judge Rules Earplug Litigation Cases Will Proceed Despite Aearo Technologies’ Bankruptcy
On August 26, Judge Jeffrey J. Graham of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Indiana ruled that the bankruptcy of 3M’s subsidiary Aearo Technologies did not halt the earplug litigation cases pending against the parent company, and denied Aearo’s...
JPML Consolidates Gardasil Vaccine Claims Before District Court Judge
On August 4, 2022, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) consolidated claims related to the use of the Gardasil vaccine before Judge Robert J. Conrad, Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina. Manufactured by Merck...