Since the 1993 United States Supreme Court case of Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, a majority of state courts in the United States have followed the standard of review established in Daubert for determining whether an expert’s testimony is admissible. The...
In June of 2017, the United States Supreme Court issued two rulings, both of which addressed whether plaintiffs can bring lawsuits in states in which the plaintiffs and defendants have little or no connection. The Supreme Court’s rulings made it clear that in cases...
New Jersey was one of the first states to establish a multidistrict litigation (MDL) docket for thousands of pending ovarian and uterine cancer claims against Johnson & Johnson for the company’s talcum powder products. Last week, a number of plaintiffs on the New...
Last week, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals held that three lawsuits against Michigan’s environmental officials over Flint’s lead-tainted water must be litigated in the state court and not the federal court. At the heart of the appeal was whether the officials were...
Boston area schools started a new school year recently and two organizations took steps to ensure that parents were made aware of steps that they could take to reduce the likelihood that their children would ingest lead particles from drinking water sources. As part...
A common refrain from plaintiffs’ experts in the asbestos litigation is that “each and every exposure” to asbestos fibers was a substantial contributing cause of a plaintiff’s asbestos-related disease. Under this theory, it makes no difference whether a plaintiff was...
In two separate instances recently, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts continued to show that it will not show leniency towards individuals and companies alike over failure to comply with existing asbestos regulations. In the first instance, the Massachusetts...
Johnson & Johnson’s motion to delay trial in hundreds of talc-based ovarian cancer cases pending in the 22nd Circuit Court of Missouri was recently denied by appellate Judge Angela T. Quigless. Johnson & Johnson, manufacturer and marketer of numerous...
The Los Angeles County Superior Court scheduled its first trial for July 3, 2017 in a case involving a woman who claims that she developed ovarian cancer from the use of Johnson & Johnson’s talc-containing Baby Powder and Shower-to-Shower products. The...
In September of 2016, a New Jersey Superior Court judge dismissed the lawsuits of two women who claimed that their use of Johnson & Johnson talcum powder products caused their ovarian cancer. The judge dismissed the lawsuits based on his rejection of plaintiffs’...