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Cosmetic Talc Litigation Media Coverage August 10, 2016
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Petition to Coordinate California State Talcum Powder Claims Granted
Aug 9, 2016 | Harris Martin Publishing
A petition to create a coordinated docket for California’s growing number of talcum powder claims has been granted, according to a recent ruling. -
Plaintiffs Lawyers at Odds Over Talcum MDL
Aug 8, 2016 | Law.com
By Amanda Bronstad
Plaintiffs lawyers fearing trials in their cases could be sidelined are engaging in legal fisticuffs with one another over whether lawsuits linking Johnson & Johnson’s baby powder to ovarian cancer should be coordinated into multidistrict litigation.
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Petition to Coordinate California State Talcum Powder Claims Granted
Aug 9, 2016 | Harris Martin Publishing
LOS ANGELES –– A petition to create a coordinated docket for California’s growing number of talcum powder claims has been granted, according to a recent ruling.
In an Aug. 2 ruling, Judge Ann I. Jones of the Los Angeles Superior Court found that “coordination will promote the ends of justice.”
“Given the expected magnitude of the cases (i.e., approximately 2,000) and Petitioners’ representation that the majority of the Plaintiffs will be from Southern California, the Court recommends that the site of the coordinated proceedings be Los Angeles County,” the ruling stated.
Plaintiffs filed the petition in May, arguing that all ...
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Plaintiffs Lawyers at Odds Over Talcum MDL
Aug 8, 2016 | Law.com
By Amanda Bronstad
Plaintiffs lawyers fearing trials in their cases could be sidelined are engaging in legal fisticuffs with one another over whether lawsuits linking Johnson & Johnson’s baby powder to ovarian cancer should be coordinated into multidistrict litigation.
More than 1,700 women and family members of those who died have sued Johnson & Johnson alleging its talcum powder products caused their ovarian cancer. Most are plaintiffs in about 250 cases sprinkled among state courts in California, Missouri and New Jersey. But in a July 15 motion before the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, Mississippi plaintiffs lawyer Don Barrett moved to coordinate the federal cases for discovery purposes. That prompted several prominent plaintiffs lawyers to object on the ground that an MDL would only slow down discovery and halt upcoming trials, the next of which are scheduled for Sept. 26 in Missouri and Oct. 11 in New Jersey.
“When we have an MDL, the point of it is all the pretrial efficiencies, but we’ve already got that established and trials are going forward,” said Karen Menzies of Oakland, California-based Gibbs Law Group, who filed an opposition to an MDL on Aug. 5 with Indianapolis-based Cohen & Malad. “This is one of the unique instances where a significant portion of the plaintiffs bar would prefer to litigate these in state court.”
Barrett, of Barrett Law Group in Lexington, Mississippi, did not respond to a request for comment. In his motion, he recommended the MDL go to U.S. District Judge David Herndon in East St. Louis, Illinois.
Warren Burns, a partner at Burns Charest in Dallas, filed an Aug. 3 motion supporting Barrett’s proposal. In an interview, he said that without an MDL, his clients and others in federal court would go “to the back of the line” behind trials planned in state courts.
“The injury in this case was not confined to St. Louis, to New Jersey, or California,” he said. “It’s spread across the country and implicates women in practically every state. From my perspective, litigating hundreds of thousands of cases in individual jurisdictions spread throughout the country is difficult at best, and probably inefficient.”
Johnson & Johnson supported the creation of an MDL in an Aug. 5 filing. But its attorney, John Beisner, leader of the mass torts, insurance and consumer litigation group at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, asked that the cases be transferred to U.S. District Judge Freda Wolfson in Trenton, New Jersey, or U.S. District Judge Timothy DeGiusti in Oklahoma City, who “has not yet had the opportunity to preside over an MDL proceeding.”
So far, three cases have ended in verdicts, with juries issuing awards of $72 million and $55 million earlier this year. About 25 individual cases have been filed in federal courts. But more than 1,400 women are plaintiffs in 20 cases filed in the 22nd Judicial Circuit Court in St. Louis, Missouri, where this year’s verdicts came out. There are nearly 200 individual cases in New Jersey state courts, and 42 lawsuits in California state courts brought on behalf of about 200 women.
Menzies said California has a “preference statute” that allows women facing a shortened life span to get ahead of the line for trial.
“People are unfortunately frequently having to attend funerals of their clients,” she said. “If we’re able to get trials in state court jurisdictions, or a place in California, where we get preference statutes, that’s uniquely important.”
http://www.law.com/sites/almstaff/2016/08/08/plaintiffs-lawyers-at-odds-over-talcum-mdl/?slreturn=20160710023951
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