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Product Liability
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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.
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May 22, 2024
Senate, House Dems Seek DOJ Big Oil Climate Impact Probe
U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin, Democrats from Rhode Island and Maryland, respectively, called on the U.S. Department of Justice on Wednesday to formally investigate Big Oil companies over their decadeslong effort to conceal the impact of fossil fuels on climate change.
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May 22, 2024
WeChat Users Must Arbitrate Privacy Row, Calif. Panel Says
California appellate justices said Monday that WeChat users must arbitrate their proposed class action accusing Tencent of using politically motivated practices to censor their communications, saying plaintiffs can't argue they never agreed to terms of service with the arbitration provision while also basing their complaint on those same terms of service.
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May 22, 2024
3M Says Insurers Are Dodging Coverage Of $6B Earplug Deal
3M and its subsidiary Aearo Technologies have reported difficulties getting their insurers to pay out more than $1.5 billion in coverage after the companies reached a $6 billion deal to settle multidistrict litigation alleging their combat earplugs failed to protect the hearing of service members and veterans.
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May 22, 2024
$600M Norfolk Southern Derailment Deal Gets Early Court OK
Consolidated class litigation over last year's fiery Norfolk Southern train derailment and toxic chemical spill in East Palestine, Ohio, cleared a court hurdle Tuesday after a federal judge tentatively signed off on a proposed $600 million settlement between the rail giant and thousands of impacted residents and businesses.
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May 22, 2024
Lead Blood Test Maker To Plead Guilty, Pay $42M Over Defects
Medical device maker Magellan Diagnostics has agreed to pay at least $42 million and plead guilty to hiding a defect in its blood testing devices for lead that caused inaccurately low results for tens of thousands of children and others, Massachusetts federal prosecutors said.
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May 22, 2024
Mich. Judge Gives Final OK To Engineering Co. $8M Flint Deal
A Michigan federal judge has granted final approval of an $8 million settlement between a civil engineering company and Flint, Michigan, residents, putting to rest claims the company failed to warn them of likely lead contamination that triggered a drinking water crisis in the city.
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May 21, 2024
Hawaii Wins $916M From Bristol-Myers, Sanofi Over Plavix
Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and Sanofi owe more than $916 million to the state of Hawaii for not warning patients of East Asian or Pacific Island ancestry of potential health risks associated with their blood thinner Plavix, a state judge ruled Tuesday, following a trip to the state's highest court.
Expert Analysis
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Finding Focus: Strategies For Attorneys With ADHD
Given the prevalence of ADHD among attorneys, it is imperative that the legal community gain a better understanding of how ADHD affects well-being, and that resources and strategies exist for attorneys with this disability to manage their symptoms and achieve success, say Casey Dixon at Dixon Life Coaching and Krista Larson at Stinson.
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Opinion
Time To Ban Deferred Prosecution For Fatal Corporate Crime
As illustrated by prosecutors’ deals with Boeing and other companies, deferred prosecution agreements have strayed far from their original purpose, and Congress must ban the use of this tool in cases where corporate misconduct has led to fatalities, says Peter Reilly at Texas A&M University School of Law.
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Why Hemp-Synthesized Intoxicants Need Uniform Regs
State laws regulating hemp-synthesized intoxicants are a patchwork with little consistency between any given state, and without the adoption of a uniform regulatory framework, producers and consumers alike will need to be very cautious, say Dylan Anderson and Seth Goldberg at Duane Morris.
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Attorneys, Law Schools Must Adapt To New Era Of Evidence
Technological advancements mean more direct evidence is being created than ever before, and attorneys as well as law schools must modify their methods to account for new challenges in how this evidence is collected and used to try cases, says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.
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Analyzing The Legal Ripples Of The EPA's PFAS Regulation
As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency makes major moves on its pledge to regulate per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, the developing body of PFAS regulation will lead to an increase in litigation, and personal injury and product liability claims, say attorneys at Gordon & Rees.
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Boeing Opinion Strikes Blow Against Overpayment Theory
The Fifth Circuit's decision in Earl v. Boeing Co. casts doubt on consumers' standing to bring claims of overpayment for products later revealed to have defects — and suggests that it's more likely that those products would have been removed from the market, driving up the price of alternatives, say attorneys at Bush Seyferth.
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Tips For Litigating Against Pro Se Parties In Complex Disputes
Litigating against self-represented parties in complex cases can pose unique challenges for attorneys, but for the most part, it requires the same skills that are useful in other cases — from documenting everything to understanding one’s ethical duties, says Bryan Ketroser at Alto Litigation.
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Opinion
Test Results Signal Poor Odds For Lead Cables Litigation
After sites in New York and New Jersey allegedly contaminated with lead by telecommunications cables were found by state and federal agencies to present no imminent threats to public health, it seems unlikely that mass litigation over this issue by plaintiffs firms or state attorneys general will succeed, says Andrew Ketterer at Ketterer & Ketterer.
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Ga. Ruling A Win For Plaintiffs Injured By Older Products
The Georgia Supreme Court's recent opinion in Ford Motor Co. v. Cosper gives plaintiffs the assurance that even if they are injured by older products, they can still bring claims under state law if the manufacturer used a design that it knew, or should have known, created a risk of substantial harm, says Rob Snyder at Cannella Snyder.
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Class Action Defense: Don't Give Up On Bristol-Myers Squibb
Federal appellate court decisions in the six years since the U.S. Supreme Court decided Bristol-Myers Squibb show that it's anyone's ballgame in class action jurisdictional arguments, so defendants are encouraged to consider carefully whether, where and when arguing lack of specific personal jurisdiction may be advantageous, say attorneys at K&L Gates.
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Pro Bono Work Is Powerful Self-Help For Attorneys
Oct. 22-28 is Pro Bono Week, serving as a useful reminder that offering free legal help to the public can help attorneys expand their legal toolbox, forge community relationships and create human connections, despite the challenges of this kind of work, says Orlando Lopez at Culhane Meadows.
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Series
Playing In A Rock Cover Band Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Performing in a classic rock cover band has driven me to hone several skills — including focus, organization and networking — that have benefited my professional development, demonstrating that taking time to follow your muse outside of work can be a boon to your career, says Michael Gambro at Cadwalader.
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How To Advertise Carbon Reductions Under New Calif. Law
As more companies advertise their efforts to reach the status of carbon neutral or net zero, California's recently enacted Voluntary Carbon Market Disclosures Act aims to force companies to more clearly disclose the basis for such claims — and there's not a lot of time to comply, say Gonzalo Mon and Katie Rogers at Kelley Drye.
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Series
The Pop Culture Docket: Judge Espinosa On 'Lincoln Lawyer'
The murder trials in Netflix’s “The Lincoln Lawyer” illustrate the stark contrast between the ethical high ground that fosters and maintains the criminal justice system's integrity, and the ethical abyss that can undermine it, with an important reminder for all legal practitioners, say Judge Adam Espinosa and Andrew Howard at the Colorado 2nd Judicial District Court.
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Calif. Right To Repair Law Highlights A Growing Movement
New legislation in California is a comprehensive victory for the "right to repair" movement — signaling that this push for legal reform represents a multifaceted challenge to the status quo not only on the consumer rights front, but also in the fields of copyright, software, antitrust and warranty law, says Courtney Sarnow at Culhane Meadows.