Articles Posted in Product Liability

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From 1953 to 1987, anyone who lived or worked at the Camp Lejeune Marine Corps base was exposed to toxic chemicals in the water supply. The contaminated water at Lejeune caused thousands to develop cancer and other serious health conditions. For years, these victims were blocked from seeking compensation for their injuries. In August 2022, however, Congress passed a new law that gives Camp Lejeune victims the right to bring claims against the government for their injuries.

Thousands of Camp Lejeune claims are expected to be filed and the majority of them will ultimately be resolved by settlement. There is a lot of speculation about what the settlement value of individual Camp Lejeune cases will be. In this post, our Camp Lejeune lawyers will discuss the various factors that will impact the amount of Camp Lejeune settlement payouts. We will also provide our best estimate, revised in 2023, as to what the settlement value of Camp Lejeune claims will be based on the type of cancer or health condition alleged by the plaintiff.

About the Camp Lejeune Water Contamination Lawsuits

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Over 288,000 plaintiffs have filed a 3M earplug lawsuit against 3M alleging that the company’s Combat Arms earplugs were defective and failed to protect them from hearing damage.

The 3M earplug lawsuits have been consolidated into the largest “class action” MDL in history – the 3M Earplugs MDL in the Northern District of Florida.

Our law firm is taking 3M earplug lawsuits in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

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This blog provides an update on the hernia mesh lawsuits.  As of March 16, 2022, there are 16,437 lawsuits against Bard and 3,614 lawsuits against Ethicon (Johnson & Johnson) in federal court that are consolidated in an MDL class action lawsuit.

This page was last updated on April 15, 2022.

April 15, 2022 Update: Jury awarded $255,000 (which includes $5,000 to Mr. Milanesi’s wife for loss of consortium).  Plaintiff won on defective design claim.  Is this the big verdict our lawyers hoped for?  No.  But for bellwether effect, this verdict will do just fine.  And a win is a win.

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This page is about the Similac recall lawsuit from the recall that was announced on February 2022.  Our lawyers are handling baby formula recall lawsuits NEC lawsuits in all 50 states.

There are more of these salmonella food poisoning claim out there from this recall than our attorneys had anticipated.  Our law firm has received hundreds of calls from victims’ parents.

If you have a potential claim, reach out to our lawyers today.

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Bellwether trials are basically “test” cases in large mass tort litigation involving thousands of plaintiffs. When you have thousands of individual plaintiffs bringing similar claims (usually product liability) it is not physically possible to take every case to trial.

Instead, a handful of sample cases are tried to give everyone involved in the litigation a clear idea of the settlement compensation payouts victims should receive.  These trials are bellwether trials.

In this post, we will explain the bellwether process in mass tort multidistrict litigation (MDL) cases. We will examine the role of bellwether trials and how individual cases are selected to serve as bellwether cases.

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While Bayer continues to settle large blocks of Roundup lawsuits, another Roundup jury trial is currently underway in California. Following a COVID delay, the trial in the case of plaintiff Donnetta Stephens has now converted to a virtual proceeding, making it one of the first “trials by zoom” in U.S. history.

This post, written on October 26, 2021, and updated on December 20, 2021, offers a snapshot of the latest Roundup lawsuit and its impact on settlement amounts in Phase Two (post-settlement) of the Roundup litigation.

[December 10, 2021 Update:  The 4th Roundup lawsuit to go trial resulted in a defense verdict for Bayer this week in the case of Donnetta Stephens v. Monsanto.  Stephens was a woman in her 70s who claimed that she used Roundup regularly in her garden for years and was subsequently diagnosed with lymphoma. The trial, as we discuss below, had to be held entirely by Zoom video conferencing (one of the first-ever “Zoom trials”) because of continuing COVID restrictions in California.

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Last month, medical device company Philips drew national attention from the plaintiffs’ bar when it recalled over 3 million sleep apnea CPAP machines based on serious health concerns. Philips instructed users to immediately stop using the recalled devices because they could be causing them to inhale toxic chemicals.

The nature and circumstances of the recall have plaintiffs’ speculating on whether former users of the recalled devices will have viable claims in a CPAP product liability lawsuit. The success of future CPAP recall lawsuits will depend on 2 factors: (1) the extent of Philip’s liability which will be driven by what they knew and when; and (2) the scientific evidence linking the defect in the CPAP devices to specific health consequences. In this post, I focus specifically on the first factor – what did Philips know and when?

November 2021 Update:

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Lawyers are now jumping on NEC lawsuits that alleged baby formulas made from cow milk, such as Enfamil and Similac, pose a danger to premature infants because they greatly increase the risk of a dangerous infection called necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC).  Our attorneys are going after these potential lawsuits as well because we think they might produce large settlements and verdicts.

Over the last 12 months, numerous product liability lawsuits have been filed against the manufacturer of Similac (Abbott Laboratories, Inc.) and the maker of Enfamil (Mead Johnson Nutrition). These NEC formula lawsuits accuse the defendants of deliberately failing to warn about the risk of NEC.

Mass tort historians, if such a thing exists, will tell you that first cases filed in an eventually successful mass tort end in disaster.  One of the first infant formula NEC lawsuits was Ferry v. Mead Johnson & Co., et al. (3:20-cv-00099) which was filed in Connecticut state court and removed to the U.S. District Court for Connecticut because of diversity jurisdiction.

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Bayer will pull Round-Up off the market in January 2023.  This post is about how this will impact the settlement amounts in future Roundup lawsuits that are not in the initial settlement.

Ever since its acquisition of Monsanto back in 2016, Bayer has been besieged by a growing tide of Roundup lawsuits. The lawsuits allege that prolonged exposure to the active ingredient in Roundup, glyphosate, can cause cancer. Bayer has steadfastly defended the safety of its iconic weed killer product. But last week the company made a drastic shift when it announced that glyphosate-based Roundup will be pulled from the retail market starting January 2023.

Roundup-242x300Why leave the product on the market for another year?  It is hard to defend.  Bayer seems to desperately not want to make it seems like a recall.  I’m-not-actually-doing-this-thing-that-I’m-it-seems-like-I’m-doing.

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