HB Tort Notes Archives

NJ Judge Overstepped in Striking Talc Plaintiff Experts, Verus Reports
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NJ Judge Overstepped in Striking Talc Plaintiff Experts, Verus Reports

NJ Judge Overstepped in Striking Talc Plaintiff Experts, Verus Reports

August 21st, 2020|Categories: HB Tort Notes|Tags: expert testimony, expert witness, mass torts, ovarian cancer litigation|

Manager of Research Services Verus LLC klavin@verusllc.com 609-466-0427 Judge Abused Discretion in Striking Expert Evidence, NJ Appellate Court Finds Reverses 2016 Summary Judgment in Ovarian Cancer Cases On August 5, a three judge panel from the New Jersey state appeals court reversed a 2016 summary judgment granted in favor of defendants, talc manufacturer Johnson & Johnson and talc miner Imerys Talc America in cases brought by two women who allege J&J’s talc products caused their ovarian cancer. In its opinion, the panel ruled that Atlantic County Superior Court Judge Nelson C. Johnson abused his discretion by serving as the fact finder in deciding the credibility of the plaintiffs’ experts’ opinions instead of merely assessing whether the doctors’ opinions were based on sound scientific methodology. The trial judge acknowledged that the experts, Dr. Graham Colditz and Dr. Daniel Cramer, were qualified but opined that their scientific studies and evidence were narrow and shallow, showing a preference for cohort studies and their larger sample sizes over the case studies relied on by the experts. In overturning the ruling by the trial court and discussing the studies cited by Colditz and Cramer, the appeals court stated that those studies satisfied the criteria outlined in the Federal Judicial Center’s Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence and also noted that size and [...]

Microsoft Sued Over Data Sharing in Class Action
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Microsoft Sued Over Data Sharing in Class Action

Microsoft Sued Over Data Sharing in Class Action

July 26th, 2020|Categories: Emerging Litigation & Risk, HB Emerging Law Notes, HB Risk Notes, HB Tort Notes|Tags: amazon antitrust, apple antitrust, class action, facebook antitrust, google antitrust, illegal data sharing, Privacy, technology antitrust|

Microsoft Sued Over Data Sharing in Class Action Consumers, including individuals and companies, filed a class action complaint  against Microsoft in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, claiming the company shared consumer data without consent to subcontractors and third parties, including Facebook, despite policies that stated otherwise. The plaintiffs accused Microsoft of “misrepresenting its privacy and security practices, violating federal and state law, and illegally sharing and using its business-class Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Exchange customers’ data.” Read more from Law Street Media: https://lawstreetmedia.com/tech/microsoft-sued-over-data-sharing-in-class-action/

Monsanto, Bayer Paying Billions for PCB Cleanups
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Monsanto, Bayer Paying Billions for PCB Cleanups

Monsanto, Bayer Paying Billions for PCB Cleanups

July 3rd, 2020|Categories: HB Tort Notes|Tags: Bayer settlement, monsanto, PCB class action, PCB settlement, roundup, water contamination litigation|

Read Baltimore Sun environmental writer Scott Dance's June 24, 2020, article titled, "A $550M national class-action settlement includes money for cleanup of PCBs in Baltimore waterways." He offers the Maryland angle on the $550 million class action settlement between Monsanto and 13 government agencies across the U.S., just part of a much larger agreement. "The settlement was one of several that Monsanto’s owner, German pharmaceutical company Bayer, announced Wednesday. Bayer said it’s paying up to $10.9 billion to settle current and potential future litigation over Monsanto’s weedkiller Roundup, which has faced numerous lawsuits over claims it causes cancer, and $1.22 billion to settle two further cases, including the class action focused on PCBs." Dance writes that the terms of this settlement are off to Judge Fernando M. Olquin of the Central District of California for his review. Judge Olquin was one of the presenters on multiple panels at the Class Action Law Forum presented by Western Alliance Bank and produced by my team at HB. Kenneth R. Feinberg, also a presenter, is the court-appointed special master in the case. The Baltimore Sun piece was one of many that gave the local perspective on this nationwide litigation and settlement in progress, like this one from the San Francisco Chronicle, with a Seattle dateline, and this one from the Washington State Wire quoting the [...]

New Litigation Journal Coming January 2021

March 19th, 2020|Categories: HB Risk Notes, HB Tort Notes|

HB, Fastcase Partner to Publish Law Street Media’s Journal of Emerging Issues in Litigation FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 19, 2020 Media Contact: Jennifer Brand Ransom | Fastcase Media Relations 202.731.2114 | jbransom@brandsolutionsgroup.com Washington, DC (March 13, 2020) – Legal publisher Fastcase and partner HB Litigation Conferences today announced a journal partnership to provide firms with expert insights into emerging litigation. The new Law Street Media's Journal of Emerging Litigation will be led by Managing Director and Founder of HB Litigation Conferences Tom Hagy, former Publisher and Managing Editor of LexisNexis Mealey’s Litigation Reports. “There are many new areas of litigation emerging from vaping to mandatory arbitration, privacy breaches to drones and autonomous vehicles and our Docket Alarm service is in such a unique position to track the filing data. We wanted to focus on new types of suits and the experts who are leading the charge, before litigation completely unfolds. To do so, we needed a strong journalist and leader who could make sense of these new types of lawsuits and pick the best of the best to cover. Tom Hagy was the first and best choice for us,” noted Steve Errick, COO of Fastcase. Publishing its first issue this summer, the focus of the journal in many ways will parallel Hagy's career-long focus on emerging areas of litigation, supported with the valuable filing data from Docket Alarm. “Emerging [...]

PTSD Claims Brought by Facebook’s ‘Graphic Content’ Reviewers Goes to ADR, Putting Civil Action on Pause

August 15th, 2019|Categories: HB Tort Notes|

By Tom Hagy Facebook can be great fun. How else would I have seen a video of an eight-year-old drummer-girl utterly thrashing Led Zeppelin’s Good Times Bad Times? Or a dog running away with a lit skyrocket as his human friends run, duck and ditch for their lives? Or what your cat looks like in a tuxedo? Facebook can also be a source of horror. Some of the most distressful commentary and images you wish you could un-see. And that’s just from my family. Imagine your entire job is to monitor Facebook discussions and remove its graphic content. Day in and day out. That’s literally all you did. A group of Facebook employees says that was their job, and their exposure to an “unmitigated barrage of horrifying content” and “toxic images” has caused them to suffer “debilitating trauma-related injuries.” In September 2018 they filed suit in California Superior Court in San Mateo seeking an order requiring Facebook to implement safety guidelines for content moderators which, they say, the company has admitted are “necessary and appropriate.” They also want the company to fund a medical monitoring program for the diagnosis and treatment of psychological injuries including post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. The plaintiffs quote Chris Harrison, whom they characterize as a Facebook executive in charge of the company’s “global resiliency team” as [...]

Canna Law Blog Reviews Hemp-CBD Regulations State-by-State, Week-by-Week

July 22nd, 2019|Categories: HB Risk Notes, HB Tort Notes|

“When it comes to hemp, few states have embraced it like Colorado,” writes Harris Bricken attorney Daniel Shortt. “If you buy a product containing hemp, in any state across the country, it likely came from Colorado.” The state has allocated more than 12,000 acres of outdoor space and 2.35 million square feet of indoor space to hemp cultivation, according to Marijuana Business Daily. Shortt and his colleagues are working their way through a state-by-state series on the Canna Law Blog™, titled Hemp-CBD Across State Lines. The Harris Bricken team has covered Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas and California, and added Colorado to the list yesterday, July 21. The firm’s series covers state regulatory activity following the enactment of the federal Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, aka “The Farm Bill,” which removed hemp and its derivatives from the definition of marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act. The bill gave the USDA regulatory authority over hemp cultivation at the federal level, but states may maintain primary regulatory authority over the crop cultivated within their borders by submitting a plan to the USDA, Shortt explains. Read the Canna Law Blog's Colorado post and follow this series, updated weekly. Related Webinar This Week The Harris Bricken law firm has been on the forefront of the law regarding cannabis and related products for years. Three Harris Bricken attorneys, [...]

CNN — Jury returns $2 billion verdict against Monsanto for couple with cancer — the biggest so far

June 5th, 2019|Categories: HB Tort Notes|Tags: California Lawsuit, cancer, EPA, jury, Lawsuit, monsanto, monsanto lawsuit, roundup, verdict|

A California jury returned a $2.055 billion verdict against Monsanto and their popular weed killer, Roundup. “The verdict in Oakland includes more than $55 million in compensatory damage and $2 billion in punitive damages.” The septuagenarian plaintiffs, represented by attorney Michael Miller of The Miller Firm, were a California couple that said long-term exposure to Roundup caused both of them to be diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a cancer that usually cannot be traced back to a source according to the American Cancer Society. The particular carcinogen in Roundup is glyphosate, which the EPA has stated was not a carcinogen in a 2015 assessment, which contradicts WHO’s statement that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic to humans”. While a Monsanto spokesperson previously denied any manipulation, a jury found that a series of texts and emails between Monsanto and the EPA that proved Monsanto culpable of manipulating science. Read the complete post by Michael Nedelman on CNN.com here!

Philadelphia Jury Hits J&J with $120M Award in Mesh Injury Case — Law360

April 25th, 2019|Categories: HB Tort Notes|Tags: pelvic mesh, TVT-O|

"Jurors credited claims from Susan McFarland that the negligent design of a mesh implant she received in 2008 caused the product to saw through the soft tissue in her pelvis and become exposed in her vagina. She was eventually forced to undergo a second surgery to remove a portion of the implant. "The pain she’s been left with as a result of the complications, she says, has prevented her from having sex with her husband for the last 10 years. "This is the second time jurors have been asked to determine whether McFarland and her husband should be awarded damages for injuries she attributes to alleged defects in a so-called TVT-O implant she received to treat urinary stress incontinence." Read the complete article on Law360 here.

The Need for Real MDL Rules Will Only Grow More Acute — Drug and Device Law Blog

April 16th, 2019|Categories: HB Tort Notes|Tags: Forum, Jurisdiction, MDL, MDL Rules, multidistrict litigation|

By Bexis . "In the ensuing procedural gamesmanship, plaintiffs are in the process of losing one of the main ways they gamed the system to keep diverse cases in state court – the so-called 'forum defendant rule' whereby even a diverse action could be kept in state court by the presence of defendant domiciled in the plaintiff’s chosen forum. The forum defendant rule applies only to parties 'properly joined and served,' and technologically-savvy defendants have discovered that, by monitoring electronic dockets, they can remove diverse cases faster than plaintiffs can serve forum defendants. We call this 'pre-service,' 'snap,' or 'wrinkle' removal, and we’ve chronicled (and advocated) its rise since 2007." Read the complete post by Bexis on Drug and Device Law Blog here. This is an excellent blog. One of my favorites. It's unapologetically defense-oriented, of course. A phrase like "gamed the system" is practically an invitation for rebuttal! So if you would like to respond, rebut, or rebuke, please write to us at Editor@LitigationConferences.com. --Tom Hagy, HB

A Generic Drug Failure to Warn Claim? –Michelle Hart Yeary

April 14th, 2019|Categories: HB Tort Notes|Tags: Dechert, failure to warn, mensing, michelle yeary, off-label, preemption|

"Rather than focusing on what plaintiff’s off-label marketing claim really was – a claim that defendant’s label should have contained different information or warnings about off-label uses – an impliedly preempted claim, the court got distracted trying to fit the case in under Bausch and started talking about parallel violation claims. "The court found that because plaintiff was alleging a violation of federal regulations, his claims “run parallel to [defendant’s] state law duties,” and thus were not preempted. The problem with this is that Mensing is not an express preemption case. It was an implied preemption case, and the district court had no business applying 'parallel claim' analysis to implied preemption, where a 'parallel claim' exception does not exist. It makes no difference whether plaintiff’s off-label promotion claim is 'parallel' to federal regulations, defendant could not have offered any different warning so any claim that the warning or information it provided was inadequate is preempted under Mensing. The court was trying to fit a square peg into a round whole – and the only way that works is to cut off the corners." Read the complete post by Dechert's Michelle Hart Yeary here!

Private Calif. Plaintiffs Seemingly Enforcing FDCA, Drug & Device Law Blog Says

April 12th, 2019|Categories: HB Tort Notes|

"Doctors treated two plaintiffs for severe psychological problems, ultimately employing defendant’s Thymatron System IV to perform electroconvulsive therapy. Plaintiffs claimed that, as a result, they suffered brain trauma, memory loss and other brain-related injuries. They filed product liability claims based, in the main, on the manufacturer’s alleged failure to report adverse events. The decision in Riera addressed summary judgment motions, ones filed by both the plaintiffs and the defendant. You don’t ordinarily see summary judgment motions by plaintiffs, and Riera is an example of why." Read the complete post by John J. Sullivan of Cozen O'Connor.

Million-Dollar Settlement in Employee Background Check Case, Top Class Actions Reports

April 11th, 2019|Categories: HB Risk Notes, HB Tort Notes|Tags: background checks, employee background, employee privacy, fair credit reporting, FCRA|

"Job applicants have secured a $1.2 million settlement ending allegations that Maxim Healthcare did not properly inform potential employees that they would have a consumer report pulled as part of the application process. Class Members include those who applied and got a job with the healthcare services company between May 5, 2009 and Aug. 27, 2012, who were also subject to a consumer report check by Maxim. The Maxim Healthcare class action lawsuit claimed that Maxim violated federal consumer privacy protections when procuring employee background checks."