Topic: Mass Torts
Last week a jury in Philadelphia hit Johnson & Johnson and its Janssen Pharmaceuticals subsidiary with an $8 billion punitive damages verdict in a Risperdal trial. Nicholas Murray’s lawsuit alleged that, after being given Risperdal in 2003 at age nine for symptoms of autism, he grew breast tissue, a condition known as gynecomastia. J&J was […]
After a two-week trial in New Orleans, the jury in the first Taxotere bellwether trial delivered a defense verdict. There are approximately 11,000 claims in the multi-district litigation against manufacturer Sanofi Aventis and other defendants alleging the chemotherapy drug Taxotere (docetaxel) caused permanent alopecia. Barbara Earnest, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2011, underwent […]
In a landmark ruling Monday afternoon, Cleveland County District Judge Thad Balkman found that corporate giant Johnson & Johnson and Janssen, its pharmaceuticals unit, had played a part in causing Oklahoma’s opioid crisis by using false and misleading marketing practices that exaggerated the benefits of their opioid painkillers Duragesic, a fentanyl patch, and Nucynta while […]
For a law firm, being entrusted with someone’s mass tort claim is a serious responsibility. If you are considering working with a litigation support service provider, you need to ensure that they take that responsibility as seriously as you do. Law firms often voice similar concerns about working with an outside provider: “The work product […]
Drug manufacturers Endo International Plc and Allergan Plc have agreed to pay $15 million to two Ohio counties in an effort to avoid an upcoming trial pending in federal court in Cleveland. The two counties’ cases scheduled to proceed on October 21 were selected to comprise the first bellwether trial out of the multidistrict litigation […]
Last week Bloomberg broke the news that Bayer had made a settlement proposal to resolve more than 18,000 Roundup lawsuits. Citing those close to the ongoing negotiations, Bloomberg reported the proposal was between $6 and $8 billion. Later that week, mediator Ken Feinberg, who was appointed by Judge Chhabria, issued a statement that the report […]
JUUL Labs, Inc. recently filed a motion with the Joint Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (the “JPML”) to transfer cases against it for consolidated pretrial proceedings and further requested that the MDL be assigned to the Northern District of California. Juul is based in San Francisco. Reply briefs are due later this month and the motion […]
In a recent blog post we discussed a little of the history of mass tort litigation. In that blog we pointed out that recent cases concerning 3M earplugs, the Juul e-cigarette and Roundup, while not typical drug and device cases, are a natural evolution of mass tort litigation. What can the plaintiffs’ bar learn from […]
Regarded by many as the original mass tort, asbestos litigation made front-page headlines in the late 1970s and early 80s, with estimates for the eventual cost of asbestos litigation in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Tobacco was another early litigation where lawyers sought justice for thousands of injured people. Many of the leading firms in […]
We all know smoking is bad for your health and the good news is that adult smoking rates in the United States have declined from a high of 45% in the 1950s to the current rate of approximately 15%. But, in its place we have seen the rapid rise of vaping, led principally by the […]
