Mass Tort Journal

All Access
ALSO SEE

Does Off-Label Promotion Settlement Signal Change in FDA Policy?

Litigation
The Wall Street Journal |
seb_ra-Istock-thinkstock

Value of Securities Class Action Settlements Triples in 2015

The total dollar value of securities class-action settlements approved last year nearly tripled compared with the previous year, growth largely driven by an uptick in “mega-settlements” of $100 million or more, according to a new report.


The analysis of federal securities class actions by Cornerstone Research also showed an upward trend in the number of settlements approved in 2015. The number reached 80 in 2015, the highest number since 2010.


In 2015, there were six approved settlements that ranged between $100 million and $200 million. The largest of them all was the close-to-$1 billion agreement that American International Group Inc. reached to settle claims that the New York-based insurer misled investors about its financial health from 2006 to 2008. The other big one was the $400 million that Pfizer Inc. agreed to pay to settle a class-action securities lawsuit alleging that the drug maker illegally marketed several medicines.

Litigation
ABA Journal |
Digital-Vision-Digital-Vision-Thinkstock

States Considering Providing Lawyers to Low Income People in Some Civil Cases

Lawmakers in 18 states are considering bills that would provide government-funded lawyers for low-income people in some civil cases.


The problem is getting attention as more people buffeted by the recession had to represent themselves in court, the Associated Press reports. Legal-aid groups have to turn away nearly a million people a year because of budgetary constraints, according to the Legal Services Corp.


Litigation
New Jersey Law Journal |

Large Verdicts Against J&J Shows ‘A Departure From the Vow by Its Founders to Put Patients’ Interests Ahead of Those of Stockholders’

Plaintiffs lawyers haven been winning a steady stream of big products liability verdicts against Johnson & Johnson recently, and some have suggested the company's size makes it a bigger target for litigation—and also more willing to take cases to trial.


Erik Gordon, who studies drug companies as an assistant professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business, said he sees a departure from the vow by Johnson & Johnson's founders to put patients' interests ahead of those of stockholders.


"J&J seems to have changed from a company that lived its famous credo of putting patients first to a company that puts 'hit the sales numbers' first and cites the credo, with feeling, when it is in a public relations mess related to allegedly defective products," Gordon said.

Litigation
Law.com |

Law Firm Mergers More Defensive Than Strategic – Client Satisfaction Often a Casualty

Just over a week after Greenberg Traurig terminated its merger talks with London-based Berwin Leighton Paisner, a new report has been published that claims that the majority of law firm mergers fail to deliver benefits to clients and risk damaging partnership value.


The study by Gulland Padfield, a London-based professional services consultancy, found that most law firms merge for defensive rather than strategic reasons, and then poorly manage the integration process by focusing too heavily on areas such as systems and technology at the expense of clients.


“Merging is a highly disruptive process, and the majority of law firms only do it if they absolutely have to,” said James Edsberg, a partner at Gulland Padfield and one of the report’s authors. “It can be genuinely transformational, if you take a more proactive and strategic approach, such as to develop practice or industry expertise globally, but just wanting to be bigger or paper over the cracks in a weak strategy is not going to work.”

Litigation
Courthouse News Service |

Lenovo Malware Claims Move Forward

- A federal judge said Friday that plaintiffs claiming Lenovo installed malicious adware on computers it sold to them have standing to bring their case, despite taking issues with some of their claims.


"There are sufficient allegations for standing," U.S. District Judge Ronald Whyte said Friday morning during a hearing on Lenovo's motion to dismiss.


Lenovo attorney Daniel Stephenson, with the firm K&L Gates, said the adware at issue in the complaint has since been addressed by the company, meaning there was little to no injury to the plaintiffs.

Litigation
Reuters |
Vstock-LLC-Vstock-Thinkstock

Corporations Don’t Want Judges They Support to Recuse in Cases Against Them

The Supreme Court has already heard arguments in one recusal case this term, Williams v. Pennsylvania. In that case, a defendant sentenced to capital punishment is challenging the Pennsylvania Chief Justice’s decision not to step aside from reviewing the death sentence, even though the judge was tangentially involved with the case as a district attorney – and trumpeted the outcome as a judicial candidate. The Williams case does not involve corporate campaign contributions, but the Philip Morris plaintiffs suggested the Supreme Court might want to wait until after its ruling in Williams to consider granting cert in their case. Philip Morris, which filed its opposition brief a week ahead of its deadline, said there is no reason to wait for Williams because Justice Karmeier, unlike the former prosecutor-turned-judge in the Pennsylvania case, had no “rooting interest” in the outcome of the suit against the tobacco company.

Litigation
Pro-Market |
seb_ra-Istock-thinkstock

Regulatory Capture, Antitrust Impotence, and the ‘Corpse of the American Republic’

On September 21, 1999, a devastating 7.6-magnitude earthquake hit Taiwan, killing close to 2,500 people and displacing more than 100,000. The earthquake also affected the PC industry: as Taiwan was home to factories that manufactured most of the world’s motherboards and semiconductors, many firms were cut off from their supplies due to local electricity interruptions. As a result, computer factories in places like California and Texas were forced to shut down.


This event (later known as the 921 earthquake), says journalist and author Barry C. Lynn, was what “clued me in to the fact that America has a monopoly problem.” He adds: “This was 1999, and I thought ‘Oh goodness, we’ve been told globalization is going to lead to more of everything in every place,’ and here was evidence that all of something really important was concentrated in one place. At least when it came to this important semiconductor, we had put all our eggs in one basket, and that basket was really far away from us.”


Litigation
The Pop Tort |

“If You Kill People, Attacking Victims and Their Attorneys Generally Doesn’t Work.”

The asbestos case brought against Garlock Sealing Technologies, one of the world’s largest asbestos-containing gasket and packing manufacturers, by more than 4,000 Navy service members and other victims with lethal mesothelioma. In 2014, a North Carolina judge – in his first and only asbestos case – decided to reduce by 90 percent the amount Garlock owed its victims. To strip them of compensation, which would have allowed Garlock to keep almost all of it, the judge had to misstate the actual trial testimony of a nuclear trained machinist who repaired and maintained nuclear propulsion plant equipment while serving in the Navy, including Garlock gaskets. The judge essentially had to believe that Navy vets knowingly participated in misleading the courts.


Yet that’s not all. Garlock’s lawyers apparently convinced this one judge that victims’ lawyers withheld certain information from Garlock - an absurd claim because the supposedly “withheld” information was already in the company’s possession. Based on that, however, Garlock filed a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) suit for treble (triple) damages against law firms representing these victims, as if they were part of some kind of organized criminal enterprise.


The asbestos industry was delirious with excitement. I’m sure they could hardly believe their luck after killing thousands of people every year. Suddenly, deadly asbestos companies weren’t the criminals. Victims’ lawyers were! “Asbestos litigation fraud has reached new heights,” wrote the Wall Street Journal. “A symbol of the corrupt practices of the plaintiffs bar” as they called on Congress to wipe out victims’ legal rights.