Product Liability

  • March 20, 2024

    EPA Tightens Auto Emissions Rules But Relaxes Timetable

    The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday finalized a rule that requires reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from cars, trucks and vans through 2032, although automakers, labor unions and dealers convinced the EPA to relax its timetable.

  • March 20, 2024

    Breaking Down Each State's Climate Priority Policies

    Forty-five states have now completed climate action plans outlining how they'll advance federal climate goals through policy and programs in coming years, with most focusing at least in part on real estate development as a way to reduce emissions.

  • March 20, 2024

    Law360 Announces The Members Of Its 2024 Editorial Boards

    Law360 is pleased to announce the formation of its 2024 Editorial Advisory Boards.

  • March 20, 2024

    US Chamber's Litigation Funding Concerns Spur 2 State Laws

    Amid concerns from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce about third-party litigation funding, including from potentially hostile foreign entities, state legislatures in Indiana and West Virginia have recently passed bills imposing restrictions on the practice.

  • March 19, 2024

    Activision, Rockstar Sued Over Addictive Video Games

    Activision Blizzard Inc., Rockstar Games Inc., Epic Games Inc. and other major video game developers have been sued in Arkansas federal court over allegations that popular titles like Fortnite and Call of Duty are addictive by design and ruined the life of a 14-year-old child.

  • March 19, 2024

    Justices Lean Toward Insurer Standing In Ch. 11 Case

    The U.S. Supreme Court appeared reluctant Tuesday to uphold a Fourth Circuit ruling that Truck Insurance Exchange lacked standing to oppose the proposed Chapter 11 reorganization plan of two manufacturers facing numerous asbestos claims, noting it's Truck that must ultimately cover the vast majority of such claims. 

  • March 19, 2024

    Ford Pushes To Decertify Classes Amid Mustang Defect Trial

    Ford Motor Co. urged a Florida federal judge Tuesday to undo classes of consumers in four states who allege they were misled when buying high-performance Mustangs, arguing that a jury heard testimony from the drivers this month that the "word was out on these cars" before purchases were made.

  • March 19, 2024

    Meta, Google, Others Can't Nix Buffalo, NY, Mass Shooting Suit

    Social media giants can't escape a lawsuit seeking to hold them liable for a mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, where 10 died, a state court judge has ruled, accepting claims the platforms are "sophisticated products" that radicalized the killer rather than messaging boards protected under the Communications Decency Act.

  • March 19, 2024

    Gerber Says Vitamin C Not Used As Preservative In Baby Food

    Gerber has said consumers who bought its baby food snack products with "no preservatives" labels got exactly what they bargained for, food with no ingredients that function as preservatives, asking a New York federal judge to toss a false-ad suit.

  • March 19, 2024

    Cancer Patient Fights Monsanto's Philadelphia Roundup Win

    A cancer patient alleging that he developed his illness after using the weed killer Roundup wants to overturn Bayer AG unit Monsanto's first win in Philadelphia's Roundup mass tort, arguing that the judge's erroneous evidentiary rulings caused him to lose the case.

  • March 20, 2024

    Future Of Judge-Shopping Reform Hazy After Rule Proposal

    The policymaking body for U.S. courts provoked a stir last week when it proposed a rule designed to curb "judge shopping," with observers saying that the policy does address one type of the practice but that it remains to be seen if individual federal district courts will be willing to adopt even that limited reform.

  • March 19, 2024

    OptumRx Can't Get Motley Rice Disqualified From Opioid MDL

    An Ohio federal judge has denied a bid by pharmacy benefit manager OptumRx to disqualify Motley Rice LLC from representing plaintiffs in the national opioid litigation, saying the company hasn't shown that the firm's prior representation of states investigating opioids puts the company at a disadvantage in the multidistrict litigation.

  • March 19, 2024

    Consumers Rip Nestle's Latest Early Win Bid In False-Ad Suit

    A proposed class of bottled water drinkers have torn into Nestle Waters North America Inc.'s third attempt to shut down their claims that the company's Poland Spring brand water is deceptively marketed because it is not actually spring water, arguing Nestle's early win bid "strains or ignores a mountain of evidence."

  • March 18, 2024

    Gasket Maker That Sued Asbestos Lawyers Faces SC Trial

    A major gasket maker that has previously sued asbestos lawyers for unfairly targeting it went to trial in South Carolina on Monday against claims by a mesothelioma patient's widow that the company skipped necessary safety testing.

  • March 18, 2024

    Doc Production Is 'Not That Hard,' MDL Judge Tells Snap's Atty

    A California magistrate judge laid out incentives Monday to spur depositions and document production in multidistrict litigation over social media's allegedly addictive design, rejecting defense counsel's arguments the incentives are "lopsided," and telling Snap's counsel document production is "not as hard as you're saying it is."

  • March 18, 2024

    Feds Try To Shake Off Youths' Constitutional Climate Suit

    The government has asked a California federal judge to dismiss a group of children's lawsuit alleging the Constitution guarantees "a life-sustaining climate system" and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency allows unsafe levels of climate pollution.

  • March 18, 2024

    How A Car Crash And 20 Years Of Litigation Ended With $25M

    A $25.5 million verdict returned by a Georgia jury for the family of a woman killed in a 2003 taxi crash was the result of decades of litigation perseverance, with more work ahead to help ensure that a similar tragedy does not occur, her family's lawyer told Law360.

  • March 18, 2024

    Bayer Beats False-Ad Suit Over 'Honey Lemon Zest' Cold Med

    A New York federal judge on Monday tossed without leave to amend a proposed class action accusing Bayer Healthcare LLC of falsely claiming that its Alka-Seltzer Plus brand over-the-counter severe cold medication contains honey and lemon, saying the product's packaging reflects flavoring and not actual ingredients.

  • March 18, 2024

    4th Circ. Sends Opioid 'Nuisance' Question To W.Va. Top Court

    The Fourth Circuit asked West Virginia's high court Monday to determine whether the state's public nuisance law can be used to target companies that shipped drugs to pharmacies in a community ravaged by addiction, a crucial question in litigation spawned by the opioid crisis.

  • March 18, 2024

    Conn. Pharmacy, FDA Say They've Settled Suit Over Probe

    Medication compounding firm SCA Pharmaceuticals and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration together have asked a Connecticut federal judge to dissolve an emergency temporary restraining order blocking the agency from publishing comments related to its contested investigation of the pharmacy, with the parties saying they have executed a settlement.

  • March 18, 2024

    Amazon, Bumkins Accused Of Not Flagging 'Superbibs' Chemical

    Amazon and baby products manufacturer Bumkins Finer Baby Products face a lawsuit in California state court alleging they sell DC Comics-themed "Superbibs" meant for feeding infants without warning customers as the law requires that they contain perfluorooctanoic acid, a "forever chemical" that may cause certain cancers and reproductive problems.

  • March 18, 2024

    Tesla Trial To Test Bounds Of Autonomous Cars' Future

    An upcoming California trial seeking to hold Tesla accountable for the death of a driver who had been playing games on his cellphone while his vehicle was in Autopilot may force the auto industry to recalibrate its approach to advanced driver-assistance systems, as developers pushing fully autonomous transportation stare down the threat of new legal landmines, experts say.

  • March 18, 2024

    Apple Beats Most Claims In AirTag Stalking Suit, For Now

    A California federal judge has dismissed the majority of a proposed class action accusing Apple of not doing enough to safeguard its AirTag tracking device from being abused by stalkers, saying that apart from a few negligence and product liability claims under Golden State law, the rest need to be reworked.

  • March 18, 2024

    Pabst Gets Calif. Judge To Can 'Olympia Beer' False Ad Suit

    A California federal judge sided with Pabst Brewing Co. on Monday in a consumer's false advertising suit, finding that the label of its now-defunct Olympia Beer was unlikely to mislead a reasonable consumer into thinking the lager was brewed in Washington using Pacific Northwest water.

  • March 18, 2024

    Kimberly-Clark Gets OK For $6M Deal Over Tainted Wipes

    A Texas federal court has granted final approval to a deal worth as much as $17 million — with $3.6 million going to plaintiff attorney fees — that would resolve claims that paper products manufacturer Kimberly-Clark sold flushable wipes contaminated with a bacteria particularly dangerous to those with weak immune systems.

Expert Analysis

  • Opinion

    Proposed Rule Could Impair MDL Flexibility, Harm Plaintiffs

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    While proposed Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16.1 is intended to enhance the management of multidistrict litigation proceedings, its one-size-fits-all requirements could stifle the flexibility that judges need to address the varying circumstances of MDLs effectively, and jeopardize plaintiffs' ability to pursue justice, say Christopher Seeger and Jennifer Scullion at Seeger Weiss.

  • Googling Prospective Jurors Is Usually A Fool's Errand

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    Though a Massachusetts federal court recently barred Google from Googling potential jurors in a patent infringement case, the company need not worry about missing evidence of bias, because internet research of jury pools usually doesn’t yield the most valuable information — voir dire and questionnaires do, says Sarah Murray at Trialcraft.

  • A Look Into How Jurors Reach High Damages Awards

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    In the wake of several large jury awards, Richard Gabriel and Emily Shaw at Decision Analysis shed light on challenges that jurors have in deciding them, the nonevidentiary and extra-legal methods they use to do so, and new research about the themes and jury characteristics of high-damages jurors.

  • Opinion

    Food Safety Bill Needed To Protect Kids From Heavy Metals

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    The recent announcement by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that hundreds of children may have been exposed to unsafe lead levels in applesauce highlights the continuing failure by Congress to pass legislation that would require baby food manufacturers to ensure safer levels of heavy metals in their products, says Vineet Dubey at Custodio & Dubey.

  • Opinion

    3rd-Party Financiers Have Power To Drive Mass Tort Cases

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    The abnormal recovery premium presented by modern mass tort cases coupled with their deemphasized role for attorneys creates an opportunity for third-party financiers to both create and control these cases, says Samir Parikh at Lewis & Clark Law School.

  • Preparing For A New Wave Of Litigation Under Silicosis Rules

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    After the Division of Occupational Safety and Health of California issued an emergency temporary standard to combat noncompliance with assessments of workers' exposure to particles of crystalline silica, companies that manufacture, distribute or sell silica-containing products will need aggressive case-specific discovery to navigate a new wave of litigation, say attorneys at Dechert.

  • Managing Competing Priorities In Witness Preparation

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    There’s often a divide between what attorneys and witnesses want out of the deposition process, but litigation teams can use several strategies to resolve this tension and help witnesses be more comfortable with the difficult conditions of testifying, say Ava Hernández and Steve Wood at Courtroom Sciences.

  • Reimagining Law Firm Culture To Break The Cycle Of Burnout

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    While attorney burnout remains a perennial issue in the legal profession, shifting post-pandemic expectations mean that law firms must adapt their office cultures to retain talent, say Kevin Henderson and Eric Pacifici at SMB Law Group.

  • Opinion

    Gilead Ruling Signals That Innovating Can Lead To Liability

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    A California appeals court's ruling last month in Gilead Life Sciences v. Superior Court of San Francisco that a drug manufacturer can be held liable for delaying the introduction of an improved version of its medication raises concerns about the chilling effects that expansive product liability claims may have on innovation, says Gary Myers at the University of Missouri School of Law.

  • Understanding And Working With The Millennials On Your Jury

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    Every trial attorney will be facing a greater proportion of millennials on their jury, as they now comprise the largest generation in the U.S., and winning them over requires an understanding of their views on politics, corporations and damages, says Clint Townson at Townson Litigation Consulting.

  • Series

    Competing In Dressage Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    My lifelong participation in the sport of dressage — often called ballet on horses — has proven that several skills developed through training and competition are transferable to legal work, especially the ability to harness focus, persistence and versatility when negotiating a deal, says Stephanie Coco at V&E.

  • Ch. 11 Ruling Highlights 'Two-Step' Challenges In 4th Circ.

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    A North Carolina bankruptcy court’s recent ruling in Bestwall’s Chapter 11 case, and the decision's interpretation of Fourth Circuit law, suggests that, compared to other circuits, it may be more difficult to dismiss so-called Texas Two-Step bankruptcy cases within the Fourth Circuit, say Brittany Falabella and Kollin Bender at Hirschler Fleischer.

  • Legal Issues Loom For Driverless Trucking

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    Companies' recent experiments with driverless trucking technology herald a transformation of the logistics sector — but stakeholders must reckon with increasing regulatory scrutiny, emerging liability issues, and concerns around ethical guidelines, insurance and standardization, say Zal Phiroz at Pier Consulting Group and Nicolas Bezada at Unishippers.

  • Del. Ruling Adds Momentum For Caremark Plaintiffs

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    The Delaware Supreme Court's recent opinion in Lebanon County Employees' Retirement Fund v. Collis could be viewed as expanding plaintiffs' ability to viably plead a Caremark claim against directors, so Delaware companies should be on heightened alert and focus on creating a record of board oversight, say attorneys at V&E.

  • The Legal Industry Needs A Cybersecurity Paradigm Shift

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    As law firms face ever-increasing risks of cyberattacks and ransomware incidents, the legal industry must implement robust cybersecurity measures and privacy-centric practices to preserve attorney-client privilege, safeguard client trust and uphold the profession’s integrity, says Ryan Paterson at Unplugged.

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