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Product Liability
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May 24, 2024
Alabama Judge Says Attys Subverted Plumbing Defect Deal
In an effort to safeguard the due process rights of hundreds of homeowners, an Alabama federal judge has tossed out more than 300 settlement class "opt-outs" and partially reopened the objection period in a product liability suit, determining that outside attorneys repeatedly misled clients regarding the pending settlement, leading to the numerous exclusion requests.
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May 24, 2024
Stew Leonard's Sued Over Dancer's Peanut Allergy Death
The family of a U.K.-born dancer is suing the Stew Leonard's grocery store chain, alleging its failure to update labels of cookies that contained peanuts led to her death at age 25 from an allergic reaction.
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May 23, 2024
TikTok, YouTube Must Produce European Privacy Data In MDL
A California federal magistrate judge overseeing discovery in multidistrict litigation over whether social media platforms' design is addictive ordered TikTok and YouTube on Thursday to give American personal injury plaintiffs certain technical documents regarding the companies' safety features implemented in Europe and Australia, which have tougher consumer privacy laws.
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May 23, 2024
Bell, Boeing Face Suit Over Marines Killed In Osprey Crash
The families of four of the five marines killed in the June 2022 crash of an Osprey V-22 aircraft sued Bell Textron Inc., The Boeing Co. and Rolls-Royce Corp. Thursday in California federal court, alleging defects in the aircraft led to the fatal crash.
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May 23, 2024
Kratom Cos. Failed To Warn Man About Risks, Colo. Suit Says
The parents of a deceased Colorado man allege that four companies that sell kratom are liable for their son's death because of their failure to warn consumers about the risks associated with using the loosely regulated plant-derived substance with opioid-like effects.
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May 23, 2024
Feds Agree To Clean, Close Dump Site For Tribal Nations
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has reached an agreement with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to properly clean and shut down a 70-year-old solid waste dump site on tribal lands in northern Arizona, saying federal law requirements for its closure haven't been followed since 1997.
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May 23, 2024
Enbridge Says Tribe's Trespass Law Could Cost It Millions
Enbridge Energy told the Seventh Circuit that a Wisconsin tribe's recently publicized trespass ordinance could cause the company to pay millions of dollars in civil penalties if the appeals court rules that its 645-mile crude oil pipeline is trespassing on the tribe's land.
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May 23, 2024
Lockheed Urges 11th Circ. To Affirm Win In Solvent Suit
Lockheed Martin Corp. asked the Eleventh Circuit on Wednesday to uphold a Florida district court's rejection of a proposed expert's testimony purporting to link a now-deceased former employee's multiple sclerosis to her work-related exposure to industrial solvents.
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May 23, 2024
Pipe Supplier Can't Nix $2.6M 'Take Home' Asbestos Verdict
A California appeals panel won't upend a $2.6 million verdict against J-M Manufacturing Co. Inc. in a case alleging a man contracted mesothelioma because of his brother's work, rejecting the company's argument that the court should apply a duty standard for negligence claims to the man's strict liability claim.
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May 23, 2024
Estate Sues Hanover For $13.4M Judgment In Death Suit
The Hanover Insurance Group has refused to pay a judgment of nearly $13.4 million to the family of a man who died in the care of a Connecticut group home, according to a lawsuit in state court.
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May 23, 2024
J&J Loses Expedited Bid For Beasley Allen Docs In Talc MDL
Johnson & Johnson has lost its bid in New Jersey federal court to have the Beasley Allen Law Firm quickly produce documents related to what J&J said seems to be an "intentional effort" by the firm to "bias the vote" against a proposed $6.5 billion reorganization plan for its talc subsidiary.
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May 23, 2024
Whirlpool Aims To Sink Fridge Wiring Defect Claims
Whirlpool Corp. is asking a Delaware federal court to throw out claims in a consolidated class action alleging it sold refrigerators with defective wiring, saying the complaint fails to show it had any knowledge of the defect.
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May 23, 2024
GSK, Boehringer Prevail In 1st Zantac Cancer Trial
A Chicago jury found Thursday that Zantac heartburn medication and its generic counterparts sold by GlaxoSmithKline and Boehringer Ingelheim are not responsible for an Illinois woman's colon cancer and her subsequent, debilitating symptoms, handing the drug companies a decisive victory in the first of hundreds of such cases to go to trial.
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May 23, 2024
Norfolk Southern Inks $310M Deal To Settle Feds' Spill Suit
Norfolk Southern Railway Co. on Thursday agreed to a $310 million deal to settle the federal government's legal claims that arose out of the 2023 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, that released large amounts of contaminants into the air, ground and water.
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May 22, 2024
Monsanto's Appellate Win Won't Nix $438M PCB Loss
A Washington state trial judge has declined to throw out a $438 million judgment against Monsanto in one of a series of PCB poisoning suits tied to a school site, rejecting the company's argument that the judgment cannot stand on the heels of a state appellate court ruling reversing another plaintiffs' win in the case group.
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May 23, 2024
Sunsetting Section 230 Gains Traction On Both Sides Of Aisle
Everyone at Wednesday's House subcommittee hearing, from left to right, seemed to agree that it's time to ditch the Communications Decency Act's hotly contested Section 230, which shields online platforms from liability for content posted by third parties.
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May 22, 2024
Robbins Geller, Motley Rice Seek To Rep Solar Co. Investors
Motley Rice LLC and Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP want to represent investors of energy company Shoals Technologies Group Inc. in consolidated proposed class action claims taking aim at the company and its brass and underwriters for allegedly concealing costly issues with wires in its products.
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May 22, 2024
Cancer Patients Target J&J Talc Unit's Asset Shuffles
Cancer patients who have sued Johnson & Johnson alleging that its talcum powder caused their illness alleged Wednesday that the company has tried to intentionally prevent tort victims from getting their day in court through a scheme of fraudulent corporate transactions.
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May 22, 2024
Mich. Judge Not Satisfied By Atty's Letter Over Flint PR Stunt
The federal judge overseeing Flint, Michigan, water crisis cases isn't satisfied with a California attorney's letter denying involvement in an alleged smear campaign targeting a lawyer for Flint children, saying Wednesday that if the attorney doesn't provide more substantive information, she will be referred to the State Bar of California.
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May 22, 2024
Justices' CFPB Alliance May Save SEC Courts, Not Chevron
A four-justice concurrence to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision upholding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's unique funding scheme last week carries implications for other cases pending before the court that challenge the so-called administrative state, or the permanent cadre of regulatory agencies and career government enforcers who hold sway over vast swaths of American economic life.
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May 22, 2024
FDA Must Act On Sexual Side Effects Of SSRIs, Suit Says
The Food and Drug Administration should be forced to warn the public about the serious sexual side effects of a certain class of depression medications after sitting on a petition asking it to do just that for more than six years, a new lawsuit says.
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May 22, 2024
Evidence Shaky In First Zantac Cancer Trial, Drugmakers Say
Attorneys for GlaxoSmithKline and Boehringer Ingelheim told a Chicago jury Wednesday that no one besides a plaintiff's paid witnesses have said publicly that Zantac heartburn medication causes colon cancer, calling on the jurors to reject claims that the companies owe $640 million for a woman's cancer diagnosis.
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May 22, 2024
DuPont 'Document Dump' Rattles NC In PFAS Suit
North Carolina and DuPont on Wednesday battled over what the state called a roughly 5 million-page "document dump" ahead of a looming June 3 discovery deadline in its contamination lawsuit, irking a business court judge in the process.
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May 22, 2024
GOP State Leaders Tell Justices Mexico Can't Sue Gunmakers
Republican attorneys general of 26 states plus the Arizona Legislature have urged the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a First Circuit decision that revived a lawsuit filed by the Mexican government seeking to hold the firearms industry responsible for drug cartel violence due to weapons trafficked across the border.
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May 22, 2024
Uvalde Families Ink $2M Deal With City Over School Shooting
The families of 19 victims of the deadly May 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School announced Wednesday that they've reached a presuit settlement with the city of Uvalde, Texas, that includes $2 million in payments to the families and commitments to better train police officers in their shooting responses.
Expert Analysis
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Trump Hush Money Case Offers Master Class In Trial Strategy
The New York criminal hush money trial of former President Donald Trump typifies some of the greatest challenges that lawyers face in crafting persuasive presentations, providing lessons on how to handle bad facts, craft a simple story that withstands attack, and cross-examine with that story in mind, says Luke Andrews at Poole Huffman.
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Series
Teaching Yoga Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Being a yoga instructor has helped me develop my confidence and authenticity, as well as stress management and people skills — all of which have crossed over into my career as an attorney, says Laura Gongaware at Clyde & Co.
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A Vision For Economic Clerkships In The Legal System
As courts handle increasingly complex damages analyses involving vast amounts of data, an economic clerkship program — integrating early-career economists into the judicial system — could improve legal outcomes and provide essential training to clerks, say Mona Birjandi at Data for Decisions and Matt Farber at Secretariat.
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When The Platform Is A Product, Strict Liability Can Attach
A New York state court's recent ruling in Patterson v. Meta, holding that social media platforms can be considered products, appears to be the first of its kind — but if it is upheld and adopted by other courts, the liability implications for internet companies could be incredibly far-reaching, say attorneys at Patterson Belknap.
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Opinion
State-Regulated Cannabis Can Thrive Without Section 280E
Marijauna's reclassification as a Schedule III-controlled substance comes at a critical juncture, as removing marijuana from being subjected to Section 280E of the Internal Revenue Code is the only path forward for the state-regulated cannabis industry to survive and thrive, say Andrew Kline at Perkins Coie and Sammy Markland at FTI Consulting.
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E-Discovery Quarterly: Recent Rulings On Text Message Data
Electronically stored information on cellphones, and in particular text messages, can present unique litigation challenges, and recent court decisions demonstrate that counsel must carefully balance what data should be preserved, collected, reviewed and produced, say attorneys at Sidley.
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Keeping Up With Class Actions: A New Era Of Higher Stakes
Corporate defendants saw unprecedented settlement numbers across all areas of class action litigation in 2022 and 2023, and this year has kept pace so far, with three settlements that stand out for the nature of the claims and for their high dollar amounts, says Gerald Maatman at Duane Morris.
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5 Climate Change Regulatory Issues Insurers Should Follow
The climate change landscape for insurers has changed dramatically recently — and not just because of the controversy over the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's climate-related risk disclosure rules, says Thomas Dawson at McDermott.
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Series
Swimming Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Years of participation in swimming events, especially in the open water, have proven to be ideal preparation for appellate arguments in court — just as you must put your trust in the ocean when competing in a swim event, you must do the same with the judicial process, says John Kulewicz at Vorys.
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What 100 Federal Cases Suggest About Changes To Chevron
With the U.S. Supreme Court poised to overturn or narrow its 40-year-old doctrine of Chevron deference, a review of 100 recent federal district court decisions confirm that changes to the Chevron framework will have broad ramifications — but the magnitude of the impact will depend on the details of the high court's ruling, say Kali Schellenberg and Jon Cochran at LeVan Stapleton.
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Manufacturers Should Pay Attention To 'Right-To-Repair' Laws
Oregon’s recently passed "right-to-repair" statute highlights that the R2R movement is not going away, and that manufacturers of all kinds need to be paying attention to the evolving list of R2R statutes in various states and consider participating in the process, says Courtney Sarnow at Culhane.
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How Cos. Can Comply With New PFAS Superfund Rule
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's new rule designating two per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances as "hazardous substances" under the Superfund law will likely trigger additional enforcement and litigation at sites across the country — so companies should evaluate any associated reporting obligations and liability risks, say attorneys at Alston & Bird.
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Ill. Justices' Ruling Answers Corporate Defamation Questions
The Illinois Supreme Court's recent unanimous decision in Project44 v. FourKites provides needed certainty and direction for lower courts considering defamation cases involving communications to corporate officers from third parties outside the corporation, which could result in fewer unwarranted motions to dismiss in trial courts and nonmeritorious appeals, says Phillip Zisook at Schoenberg Finkel.
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Tylenol MDL Highlights Expert Admissibility Headaches
A New York federal court's decision to exclude all plaintiff experts in a multidistrict litigation concerning prenatal exposure to Tylenol highlights a number of expert testimony pitfalls that parties should avoid in product liability and mass tort matters, say Rand Brothers and Courtney Block at Winston & Strawn.
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Don't Use The Same Template For Every Client Alert
As the old marketing adage goes, consistency is key, but law firm style guides need consistency that contemplates variety when it comes to client alert formats, allowing attorneys to tailor alerts to best fit the audience and subject matter, says Jessica Kaplan at Legally Penned.