Articles Posted in Product Liability

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This page is about who can file a silicosis lawsuit and the settlement amount victims can expect when making these claims.

We now know that an invisible danger often lurks in the air at construction sites —silica dust. Its fine particles, when inhaled over prolonged periods, embed themselves deep into the lungs, setting the stage for a debilitating condition known as silicosis. This progressive lung disease doesn’t just rob an individual of their breath. It can radically transform their life, subjecting them to a myriad of medical treatments, financial strain, and emotional distress.

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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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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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The discovery of a carcinogenic chemical in the popular heartburn drug Zantac prompted thousands of victims to file a Zantac lawsuit. The Zantac lawsuits in federal courts have been consolidated into a “class-action” MDL before Judge Robin Rosenberg in the Southern District of Florida.

Judge Rosenberg is meeting with counsel for both sides to hammer out the details for how individual cases will be selected for “bellwether” trials, which will begin a little over a year from now. Bellwether cases are expected to be selected based on the type of cancer involved.

The outcome of these initial test trials will be critically important in determining whether the Zantac lawsuits get resolved in a global settlement.

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