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Pelvic Mesh Mass Tort Cases Can Stay In Philly, Judge Says
Apr 2, 2015 | Law360
By Matt Fair
Nearly a hundred pelvic mesh injury cases against Boston Scientific Corp. and Johnson & Johnson unit will be allowed to proceed in Pennsylvania court after a judge on Monday rejected arguments that the plaintiffs lacked sufficient ties to the state. -
How the Tort Juggernaut Trolls for Clients
Apr 2, 2015 | Wall Street Journal
By Tiger Joyce
...Asbestos isn't the only mass tort being marketed by the plaintiffs’ bar. Law firms hoping to force gigantic settlements out of makers of surgically implanted pelvic mesh have spent an estimated $52 million last year to troll for clients, according to the Silverstein Group... -
*New* Judge Goodwin Calls Both Sides to the Table June 2
Apr 2, 2015 | Mesh Medical Device News Desk
By Jane Akre
...At trial, seven manufacturers have faced jury awards in excess of $100 million, however Ethicon ( Johnson & Johnson) Bard and Boston Scientific have appealed those verdicts...
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Pelvic Mesh Mass Tort Cases Can Stay In Philly, Judge Says
Apr 2, 2015 | Law360
By Matt Fair
Nearly a hundred pelvic mesh injury cases against Boston Scientific Corp. and Johnson & Johnson unit will be allowed to proceed in Pennsylvania court after a judge on Monday rejected arguments that the plaintiffs lacked sufficient ties to the state.
Judge Arnold New in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas issued a one-page order denying bids by Boston Scientific and Johnson & Johnson in February to move the cases out of a mass tort program established to handle a recent influx of pelvic mesh injury claims.
Judge New did not issue an opinion to accompany his order, and an attorney for J&J declined to comment on the ruling when reached on Thursday. A lawyer for Boston Scientific did not immediately return a message from a reporter.
J&J filed a motion in September claiming that plaintiffs in the cases had not claimed that their injuries had any specific ties to Pennsylvania that would grant the court jurisdiction to hear their claims.
Boston Scientific filed preliminary objections in the mass tort program in June raising similar arguments.
J&J also argued that the plaintiffs bear the burden of supporting their claims for jurisdiction in Pennsylvania after the defendants have challenged it. The company also invoked theU.S. Supreme Court's landmark January 2014 ruling Daimler AG v. Barbara Bauman, in which the justices concluded that DaimlerChrysler could not be sued in California for injuries allegedly caused by the conduct of an Argentine firm that took place entirely outside the U.S.
The plaintiffs fired back in February arguing that decisions by both J&J and Boston Scientific to officially register to do business in Pennsylvania were enough to allow the out-of-state claims to proceed.
They pointed to a Delaware federal judge’s ruling in January finding that a defendant was subject to general jurisdiction in the state by virtue of its decision to register to conduct business there.
“The court found the defendant’s consent to jurisdiction was not vitiated by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Daimler AG v. Bauman because Daimler did not address a situation where the defendant affirmatively consented to jurisdiction,” the brief said.
According to court records, there are just over 500 suits over pelvic mesh injuries pending as part of the mass tort program.
The plaintiffs are represented by Thomas Kline, Lee Balefsky and Michelle Tiger of Kline & Specter PC.
J&J is represented by Andrew Reeve, Kenneth Murphy and Melissa Graff of Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP.
BSC is represented by Joseph Blum of Shook Hardy & Bacon LLP.
The case is In Re: Pelvic Mesh Litigation, case number 140200829, in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas. -
How the Tort Juggernaut Trolls for Clients
Apr 2, 2015 | Wall Street Journal
By Tiger Joyce
It has been more than 15 years since former Supreme Court Justice David Souter referred to asbestos litigation as an “elephantine mass,” the most massive of mass torts in America for decades. Though the U.S. epidemiological peak for mesothelioma—the incurable cancer caused by significant inhalation of asbestos fibers—came and went in the early 1990s, roughly 2,000-3,000 new claims for compensation are filed each year.
Yet recent events have raised serious questions about personal-injury law firms’ aggressive recruitment of asbestos clients and the legitimacy of the claims they file. In 2012, a jury found two Pittsburgh-based plaintiffs’ lawyers liable for fraud in a multimillion-dollar civil racketeering case brought against them by CSX Transportation. The company had alleged that the lawyers had worked with a radiologist to falsify chest X-rays to pursue asbestos-related claims against CSX. (The lawyers appealed, but then settled without admitting wrongdoing.)
Also last year a federal judge presiding over the bankruptcy of Garlock Sealing Technologies, a manufacturer targeted with asbestos suits, found that “manipulation of exposure evidence” had been perpetrated by several plaintiffs’ firms. And former New York state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was arrested and indicted earlier this year for allegedly using his influence in Albany to steer asbestos clients to a law firm that had paid him millions.ENLARGEPHOTO: GETTY IMAGES/ILLUSTRATION WORKS
With such law firms collectively spending roughly $30 million annually on television advertising alone to recruit asbestos clients, according to analysis by the Silverstein Group, it’s worth asking how the mass marketing of mass torts affects the civil justice system. If there is fierce competition among firms for a finite number of legitimate clients, does the need to recoup marketing expenses create perverse incentives to pursue speculative or even illegitimate claims, for instance, blaming lifelong smokers’ lung cancers on supposed secondhand trace exposures to asbestos dust decades earlier?
Of course, defending against fraudulent claims imposes costs on the customers, employees and shareholders of targeted companies. But it’s also fair to ask whether overwhelmed court dockets put an undue burden on taxpayers, and whether future legitimate claimants will be crowded out if compensation funds are exhausted.
Asbestos isn't the only mass tort being marketed by the plaintiffs’ bar. Law firms hoping to force gigantic settlements out of makers of surgically implanted pelvic mesh have spent an estimated $52 million last year to troll for clients, according to the Silverstein Group.
Although various physicians consider pelvic mesh to be the best available treatment for many of the millions of women who suffer what are known as pelvic floor disorders, these lawyer campaigns have generated more than 100,000 claims, making this America’s fastest-growing mass tort.
But a defense motion filed in federal multidistrict litigation in January offered extensive evidence of seemingly wholesale fraud in recruiting mesh plaintiffs. Transcripts of recruiters’ cold-calls to unsuspecting women who had not even undergone mesh implants showed brazen invitations to lie to collect “$30,000 to $40,000.” The motion also alleged unlawful invasions of many women’s medical privacy, which raises still more questions about what may be motivating hackers in recent health-care data breaches.
Another would-be mass tort is spreading like a prairie fire throughout the Midwest. Plaintiffs’ lawyers are using television, radio, websites, direct mail and meet-and-greets with corn farmers to market meritless litigation blaming a recent drop in corn prices not on supply and demand but on Syngenta, the developer of a genetically modified, pest-resistant corn seed.
The lawyers’ contrived theory of liability alleges that, despite U.S. regulators’ 2010 approval of the seed, Syngenta should have withheld it until Chinese regulators had approved it, too. China temporarily suspended all U.S. corn imports between November 2013 and December 2014, citing fears of contamination. But this story ignores that corn prices had already dropped 32% before China halted U.S. imports, and that exports to China have never amounted to more than a tiny fraction of U.S. corn sales.
There are many more examples of personal-injury lawyers’ mass marketing of mass torts, and the First Amendment certainly protects lawyers’ truthful commercial speech. But judges must do a better job of weeding out meritless and even fraudulent claims.
Congress, the Federal Trade Commission, state attorneys general and other authorities charged with protecting the public interest should also begin scrutinizing personal-injury lawyers’ marketing as zealously as they scrutinize the marketing of countless other businesses. Though congressional committees rarely hesitate to investigative various industries’ marketing practices, the marketing of law firms has not been subjected to similar examinations. It should be.
In that same spirit of inquiry, the FTC should study and report on mass tort advertising’s impact on consumers, since the litigation costs are invariably passed on to the general public in the form of higher prices for goods and services. And finally, unless they wish to risk irrelevance and displacement by government regulation, state bar associations must revoke the law licenses of attorneys who have plainly broken the public trust. Why, for example, have the Pittsburgh attorneys—who a jury ruled had committed fraud—not been disbarred?
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*New* Judge Goodwin Calls Both Sides to the Table June 2
Apr 2, 2015 | Mesh Medical Device News Desk
By Jane Akre
In an April 2 order, issued by Judge Joseph Goodwin who is overseeing thousands of transvaginal mesh lawsuits, all sides in transvaginal litigation are being called to Charleston, West Virginia June 2.
Here is the order as it pertains to Ethicon. Four other manufacturers, minus Neomedic, have also been called to the federal courthouse.
Here is the order.
This is a status conference but Judge Goodwin is calling all who have the authority to reach make major decision including any settlement offers from Ethicon, Boston Scientific, C.R. Bard, Coloplast and Cook Medical.
” It is ORDERED that (1) defendant client representative(s) with full authority to make all decisions related to MDL 2326; (2) in house counsel for defendant(s) with full authority to make all decisions related to MDL 2326; (3) settlement counsel (if any) for defendant(s); and (4) lead counsel for plaintiffs and defendant(s) attend the status conference. ”
Judge Goodwin is overseeing more than 70,000 pelvic mesh defective product civil actions. In January 2012, the similar injury cases were consolidated in his federal court by the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML). Since then, the case load has swelled beyond the capability of any single court to deliver timely resolution.
Last February, Judge Goodwin brought representatives from all sides to confer on possible settlements with the thousands of plaintiffs. See background story here and here.
In February, Judge Goodwin asked the industry to stop fighting women in court and to bring about some resolution to these cases. He predicted a rocky path for both sides if settlements were not forthcoming.
So far, American Medical Systems has vowed to settle its pending cases. Unofficial reports fromMesh News Desk readers are the settlements leave little or no compensation behind for the injured after legal fees and any outstanding debt is settled.
A dozen or so cases prepared for trial have been quietly settled by mesh manufacturers with no disclosure of the amount and no admission of liability.
At trial, seven manufacturers have faced jury awards in excess of $100 million, however Ethicon ( Johnson & Johnson) Bard and Boston Scientific have appealed those verdicts. #
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