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Product Liability
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July 12, 2024
Delta Slams Flyers' Facebook Data Sharing Class Action
Delta Air Lines has asked a California federal judge to dump a proposed class action alleging it unlawfully shared customers' sensitive personal data with Meta's Facebook through online tracking tools embedded in its website, saying its contract of carriage clearly discloses its digital advertising practices.
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July 12, 2024
Judge Questions Zuckerberg's Bid To Dodge Liability In MDL
A California federal judge voiced doubt Friday about Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's arguments for axing corporate-officer liability claims from multidistrict litigation over the allegedly addictive designs of social media, saying that while many CEOs are hands-off, "it's not clear to me that Mr. Zuckerberg is one of them."
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July 12, 2024
No Injury In Suit Targeting J&J Asset Shuffles, Talc Unit Says
Johnson & Johnson wants a New Jersey federal judge to toss a proposed class action alleging that the company has tried to intentionally prevent talc claimants from getting their day in court through a scheme of fraudulent corporate transactions, arguing that the cancer patients failed to show how any of the challenged transactions left it unable to pay its talc claims.
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July 12, 2024
Tribes, Enviro Orgs. Say Mining Exec's Retirement Moots Suit
Native American tribes and environmental groups have dropped their suit asking Montana's environmental regulator to curtail Hecla Mining Co.'s operations, telling a federal court that their complaint was based on the leadership of now-retired CEO Phillips Baker Jr.
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July 12, 2024
Widower Drops Suit Over Surgical Robot-Related Death
A widower agreed Thursday to drop his suit against Intuitive Surgical Inc. over an alleged defect in its da Vinci surgical robots that allowed electricity to arc during his wife's surgery, burning her small intestine and leading to her death.
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July 12, 2024
Litigation Funding 'Abuses' Targeted By Federal Lawmakers
Federal lawmakers are seeking to put the reins on third-party investors bankrolling litigation, with Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., introducing legislation that would require disclosure of third-party financing deals in civil lawsuits, and Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., asking Chief Justice John Roberts on Friday to have the Judicial Conference review the practice.
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July 12, 2024
Biggest Washington Decisions Of 2024: A Midyear Report
The first half of 2024 in Washington courts was punctuated by a fizzled startup's $72 million trial win against The Boeing Co., and Monsanto Co.'s appellate reversal of a $185 million verdict in one of a series of high-profile PCB poisoning cases. Here is a closer look at some of the biggest decisions in Washington state and federal courts in the first half of 2024.
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July 12, 2024
Dick's, Customer Want Golf Net Suit Stayed For Mediation
Dick's Sporting Goods Inc. and a man who claims he suffered permanent eye damage because of a defective golf practice net bought from the company are asking a Georgia federal judge to keep his litigation on hold while they pursue mediation.
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July 12, 2024
Biggest Illinois Decisions Of 2024: A Midyear Report
State and federal courts have handed down rulings so far this year that limited the reach of a federal bribery law commonly used to prosecute Illinois corruption, laid out a framework to challenge so-called mootness fees and clarified the scope of Illinois defamation and antitrust law. Here's a look at some of the biggest Illinois decisions in the first half of 2024.
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July 11, 2024
TikTok's Bid For Users' Device Data Found Overbroad
A California federal magistrate judge overseeing discovery in multidistrict litigation over claims that social media is addictive denied TikTok's request Thursday for "full" forensic images of all personal devices bellwether plaintiffs used to access its platform, telling defense counsel that he's concerned about the "overbreadth" of the request and privacy issues.
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July 11, 2024
Disney Beats Suit Over Post-Pandemic Park Pass Restrictions
A Florida federal judge Thursday tossed a lawsuit accusing Disney World of cheating customers who held pricey "Platinum" passes for its Sunshine State parks by imposing new restrictions on their use after the pandemic hit, saying the two women who sued could have canceled their passes and received a refund.
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July 11, 2024
Judge Grants Tesoro Injunction In Pipeline Fight With Feds
A North Dakota federal judge has granted a Marathon Petroleum Corp. subsidiary's request for an injunction to block an Interior Department order vacating several decisions related to a pipeline crossing through part of the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation.
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July 11, 2024
Premium Baby Bottles Leach Microplastics, Suit Says
A proposed class action filed against Newell Brands Inc. this week alleges that the company's Nuk brand of baby bottles, advertised as BPA-free, are, in fact, prone to leaching millions of particles of microplastics through routine use.
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July 11, 2024
Opiate MDL Judge Flags Evidence Preservation Shortfall
An Ohio federal judge has said "at least some" of the plaintiff local government entities in four chosen bellwether cases against pharmacy benefit managers for the multidistrict litigation over the opioid epidemic failed to preserve documents and evidence for trial, warning the parties he may replace those cases.
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July 11, 2024
GSK Asks Judge To Rule In Teva IP Case, Citing Opioid Deals
A GlaxoSmithKline lawyer has urged a Delaware federal judge to make up his mind about a nearly $400 million patent case against Teva Pharmaceuticals in light of unrelated "opioid-related cases" that the Israeli generic-drug maker has been settling in the billions of dollars.
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July 11, 2024
Hershey, Walgreens Sued For 'One Chip Challenge' Death
The Hershey Co. and its businesses that created and negligently marketed the "One Chip Challenge" to eat an ultra-spicy tortilla chip are responsible for the wrongful death of a Massachusetts 14-year-old, whose death coincided with the product being pulled from the shelves, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday by the boy's mother.
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July 11, 2024
Talc Law Firms Beat J&J Subpoenas Seeking Funding Info
The Beasley Allen Law Firm, another plaintiffs law firm and a litigation funder defeated subpoenas from Johnson & Johnson in talc litigation, with a special master reasoning that the broad swath of discovery permitted in federal courts still has limits.
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July 11, 2024
Fiat Chrysler Says Exploding Minivan MDL Still Lacks Detail
A Stellantis unit has asked a federal judge in Michigan to significantly pare back multidistrict litigation over a risk of spontaneous explosion in certain Chrysler plug-in hybrid minivans, arguing that many drivers' state claims are stale or are otherwise legally flawed.
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July 11, 2024
Calif. Customers Sue Toyota Over Hydrogen Fuel Scarcity
Toyota customers in California have slapped the automaker with a proposed class action complaint, saying the scarcity of hydrogen fuel available for their Toyota Mirai hydrogen fuel-cell electric vehicles has rendered them "unsafe, unreliable and inoperable."
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July 11, 2024
GM's $50M Faulty Fuel Pump Deal Gets Early OK
A Michigan federal judge on Thursday indicated he would give the initial approval to a $50 million settlement to end class claims that General Motors LLC sold trucks with faulty fuel pumps, clearing the way for GM to drop a Sixth Circuit appeal.
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July 11, 2024
Coca-Cola Faces Revised Suit Over PFAS In Juice Products
A New York man has hit Coca-Cola and its Simply Orange Juice Co. subsidiary with a revised proposed class action alleging they deceptively market juices as pure, healthy and all-natural when they actually contain harmful, man-made forever chemicals.
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July 11, 2024
EPA Grants Petition On Plastic Container PFAS
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday granted a petition asking it to address several so-called forever chemicals formed during the fluorination of plastic containers for a variety of household and industrial uses.
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July 10, 2024
Roundup Cancer Case Revived By Oregon Appellate Panel
An Oregon appellate panel on Wednesday revived a lawsuit claiming Bayer AG subsidiary Monsanto's weedkiller Roundup caused an Oregon man's cancer, saying the judge who oversaw the trial that cleared the company wrongly excluded testimony from an expert for the plaintiff.
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July 10, 2024
Rite Aid, DOJ Craft $410M Settlement Of Opioid Sale Claims
Rite Aid agreed to a nearly $410 million settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice, the bulk of which will be an unsecured claim in the company's Chapter 11 case, that will put to bed allegations the pharmacy chain dispensed opioids illegally, the DOJ announced Wednesday.
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July 10, 2024
Fla. Judge Will Issue Sanctions For Delay In Tesla Crash Suit
A Florida state judge said Wednesday he will issue sanctions over a failure by a biomechanics expert to timely produce data requested by Tesla in a suit over a Model S crash that killed two teenagers.
Expert Analysis
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Googling Prospective Jurors Is Usually A Fool's Errand
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.
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A Look Into How Jurors Reach High Damages Awards
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.
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Opinion
Food Safety Bill Needed To Protect Kids From Heavy Metals
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.
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Opinion
3rd-Party Financiers Have Power To Drive Mass Tort Cases
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.
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Preparing For A New Wave Of Litigation Under Silicosis Rules
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.
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Managing Competing Priorities In Witness Preparation
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.
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Reimagining Law Firm Culture To Break The Cycle Of Burnout
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.
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Opinion
Gilead Ruling Signals That Innovating Can Lead To Liability
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.
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Understanding And Working With The Millennials On Your Jury
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.
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Series
Competing In Dressage Makes Me A Better Lawyer
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.
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Ch. 11 Ruling Highlights 'Two-Step' Challenges In 4th Circ.
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.
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Legal Issues Loom For Driverless Trucking
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.
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Del. Ruling Adds Momentum For Caremark Plaintiffs
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.
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The Legal Industry Needs A Cybersecurity Paradigm Shift
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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Best Practices For Untangling Mass Tort Claimants' Liens
Recent litigation over faulty earplugs produced by 3M is just one example of a mass tort where settlement payouts to claimants will likely be complicated by the number of liens and lienholders involved — but claimants' attorneys can speed up the lien resolution process by keeping a few key strategies in mind, says Mark Eveland at Verus.