Wednesday, January 22, 2020
Symposium on New Frontiers in Torts: The Challenges of Science, Technology & Innovation at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles
The Southwestern Law Review Symposium, New Frontiers in Torts: The Challenges of Science, Technology, and Innovation, will take place on Friday, February 7, 2020 at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles. The Symposium is the inaugural event of Southwestern Law School’s Panish Civil Justice Program, which was endowed by one of the country’s leading trial lawyers, Southwestern Law School alumnus Brian Panish. The Symposium's first panel will focus on tort practice, addressing an eclectic mix of subjects ranging from predictive analytics and e-discovery to scientific evidence and the cognitive science of jury persuasion. Next, panel two will examine recent trends in financing lawsuits and proposals for changing non-lawyer relationships with law firms. In panel three, the discussion turns to new forms of tort litigation, including recent developments in multidistrict, complex, class, and toxic tort actions such as the opioid mass litigation, among others. The fourth panel will examine tort theory, analyzing both how traditional theories can deal with new tort problems and how new theories may help place old quandaries in sharper focus. The Symposium will also include a luncheon keynote discussion on the past, present, and future of torts. Registration for the symposium is available now.
Speakers and moderators at the symposium will include the following:
- Ronald Aronovsky, Professor of Law, Southwestern Law School;
- Mark Behrens, Partner and Co-Chair, Public Policy Practice Group, Shook, Hardy & Bacon;
- John Beisner, Partner and Leader, Mass Torts, Insurance and Consumer Litigation Group, Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP;
- Alan Calnan, Professor of Law, Southwestern Law School;
- Fiona Chaney, Investment Manager and Legal Counsel, Bentham IMF;
- James Fischer, Professor of Law, Southwestern Law School;
- Manuel Gomez, Associate Dean of International and Graduate Studies and Professor of Law, Florida International University College of Law;
- Michael Green, Bess and Walter Williams Professor of Law, Wake Forest University School of Law;
- Gregory Keating, Maurice Jones, Jr. – Class of 1925 Professor of Law and Philosophy, University of Southern California Gould School of Law;
- Richard Marcus, Coil Chair in Litigation and Distinguished Professor of Law, UC Hastings College of Law;
- Francis McGovern, Professor of Law, Duke Law School;
- Linda Mullenix, Morris & Rita Atlas Chair in Advocacy, University of Texas at Austin School of Law;
- Brian Panish, Founding Partner, Panish, Shea & Boyle;
- R. Rex Parris, Founding Partner, Parris Law Firm;
- Christopher Robinette, Professor of Law and Director, Advocacy Certificate Program, Widener University Commonwealth Law School;
- Michael Sander, Managing Director and Founder, Docket Alarm, and Director, Fastcase Analytics;
- Victor Schwartz, Partner and Co-Chair, Public Policy Practice Group, Shook, Hardy & Bacon;
- Anthony Sebok, Professor of Law, Yeshiva University Cardozo School of Law;
- Catherine Sharkey, Crystal Eastman Professor of Law, New York University School of Law;
- Kenneth Simons, Chancellor’s Professor of Law, UC Irvine School of Law;
- Byron Stier, Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives and Professor of Law, Southwestern Law School;
- Dov Waisman, Vice Dean and Professor of Law, Southwestern Law School; and
- Adam Zimmerman, Professor of Law and Gerald Rosen Fellow, Loyola Marymount University Law School Los Angeles.
January 22, 2020 in Aggregate Litigation Procedures, Class Actions, Conferences, Ethics, Lawyers, Mass Tort Scholarship, Preemption, Procedure, Products Liability, Punitive Damages, Science, Trial | Permalink | Comments (0)
Thursday, March 24, 2016
NFL and Big Tobacco?
The New York Times has an article today on the link between NFL and Tobacco called NFL's Concussion Research Deeply Flawed.
What does this mean for the NFL settlement? Should the issue be approached in the mode advocated long ago by Francis McGovern - that is, by allowing the mass tort to mature through multiple trials before a settlement is reached?
This article also raises the question of how the law promotes and creates disincentives for entities to conduct reliable scientific studies. For interesting takes on that question, compare Wendy Wagner, Choosing Ignorance in the Manufacture of Toxic Products with Wendy Wagner, When All Else Fails: Regulating Risky Products Through Tort Litigation.
March 24, 2016 in Aggregate Litigation Procedures, Class Actions, Science, Settlement, Tobacco | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Federal Government to Require Pharmaceutical Company Reporting of Payments to Doctors
The New York Times reports that under new regulations to be announced by the Obama administration, pharmaceutical companies will have to report payments to non-employee doctors for "research, consulting, speaking, travel and entertainment." The reporting requirements are to cover any company that has a product covered by Medicare or Medicaid, and the reporting information is to be subsequently posted by the government on a publicly accessible website.
BGS
January 17, 2012 in Ethics, Pharmaceuticals - Misc., Regulation, Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Size of BP Leak Larger Than BP Earlier Estimated
BP had been saying 5,000 barrels a day had been leaking into the Gulf, but the clean-up siphon is itself now pulling up 5,000 barrels a day and the siphon is only reaching a portion of the escaping oil. For more, see the CNN story, BP: Oil gusher bigger than we estimated.
And here's some recently released video of the BP rig on fire after the initial explosion.
BGS
May 20, 2010 in Environmental Torts, Mass Disasters, Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Monday, April 26, 2010
Klein on "Science Causation and Toxic Torts"
A provocative post from Andrew Klein as part of Torts Prof Blog's ongoing Monday guest blogger series. Check it out here.
ADL
April 26, 2010 in Environmental Torts, Mass Disasters, Mass Tort Scholarship, Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Reynolds' Move Into Smokeless Products
Thorough article in the Wall Street Journal -- Smokeless Products Are Tough Test for Reynolds, by David Kesmodel.
BGS
March 25, 2010 in FDA, Regulation, Science, Tobacco | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Albany Law Journal Symposium Issue on Off-Label Drug Prescription
The Albany Law Journal of Science & Technology has published a symposium issue on Regulating the Cure: Topics Arising Out of the Prescription of Drugs Off-Label. My article, Promotion of Off-Label Drug Use: In Favor of a Regulatory Retreat, 19 Alb. L.J. Sci & Tec. 609 (2009), is included.
BGS
March 16, 2010 in Aggregate Litigation Procedures, FDA, Mass Tort Scholarship, Off-Label Drug Use, Pharmaceuticals - Misc., Procedure, Products Liability, Regulation, Resources - Federal Agencies, Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Monday, March 15, 2010
Walter Olson Attempts to Defuse the Toyota Panic
His article, Exorcising Toyota’s Demons, was published today in the National Review online.
BGS
March 15, 2010 in Lawyers, Products Liability, Regulation, Science, Travel, Vehicles | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Increase in Black Lung Disease
Today's Wall Street Journal has an article on increases in Black Lung Disease, Black Lung on Rise in Mines, Reversing Trend, by Kris Maher. Black Lung claims are covered by a federal Black Lung program, which provides an administrative mechanism for compensation, funded by a tax on coal. What's interesting is that the rise in claims occurs despite improving technology, which would be expected to decrease health problems. Thus, the article explores possible causes, such as longer workshifts or more productive machinery that might produce more dust. If machinery is the culprit, it's possible that individual mining companies might have had an incentive to prioritize powerful machinery over safe machinery, if the costs of worker illness are spread throughout the entire industry via a coal tax. (Remedy: return to a system of individual tort claims against mining companies, or at least some administrative/tax penalty for companies with higher Black Lung claims.)
But one other possibility for the rise in Black Lung needs to at least be considered and explored: fraud. Recent events with silicosis are similar: historically falling disease rates in tandem with improving technology, followed by an odd spike in supposed disease incidence. In a now-storied Daubert inquiry, Judge Janis Jack, who herself had a background in nursing, inquired into the basis of expert testimony and diagnosis and uncovered biased and unreliable procedures that may amount to fraud; her discoveries effectively ended what appeared to be a new mass tort. See NPR, Silicosis Ruling Could Revamp Legal Landscape. Concerns of fraud and abuse should be even greater in the context of an administrative program that lacks the adversarial scrutiny of formal litigation. And the Black Lung program has historically been plagued by such problems. A 1989 article in the West Virginia Law Review, authored by a former Department of Labor counsel and a private practitioner, concluded,
[T]he program has been plagued by fraud and abuse. There have been investigations, and indictments, and convictions of agency personnel, claimant's representatives, and medical care providers. The program has been infected by an undercurrent of “petty corruption.” If anything, the program is the most often cited example of why Congress should leave occupational disease compensation to the individual states.
Allen R. Prunty & Mark E. Solomons, The Federal Black Lung Program: Its Evolution and Current Issues, 91 W. Va. L. Rev. 665, 734 (1989).
BGS
December 15, 2009 in Aggregate Litigation Procedures, Procedure, Regulation, Resources - Federal Agencies, Science | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Thursday, October 29, 2009
WLF Web Seminar on Off-Label Communication
On October 14, 2009, the Washington Legal Foundation hosted a web seminar, Communicating on Off-Label Treatments: Navigating the Treacherous Path Paved by Civil and Criminal Law Enforcement, with speakers Robert Salerno and Adam Hoffinger of Morrison & Foerster. Streaming video of the event is available online.
BGS
October 29, 2009 in FDA, Off-Label Drug Use, Pharmaceuticals - Misc., Procedure, Regulation, Resources - Federal Agencies, Resources - Organizations, Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Pro-Defense Daubert Ruling in Bausch & Lomb MoistureLoc MDL
Pertaining to the more speculative cases alleging non-fusarium infections. Drug & Device Law analyzes the opinion.
BGS
August 27, 2009 in Procedure, Products Liability, Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Viagra MDL Judge Rejects Plaintiff Expert Testimony Under Daubert
A detailed analysis (with rejoicing) from Drug and Device Law. The opinion details deficiencies in the plaintiff expert's previously peer-reviewed and published study.
For a past article of mine that set forth problems in the main study underlying the opinions of plaintiffs' experts in the phenylpropanolamine (PPA) litigation, see here.
BGS
August 23, 2009 in Aggregate Litigation Procedures, Mass Tort Scholarship, Pharmaceuticals - Misc., Procedure, Products Liability, Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Climate Change Litigation and Legislation
Sean Wajert (Dechert) from Mass Tort Defense offers an update.
August 18, 2009 in Aggregate Litigation Procedures, Environmental Torts, Procedure, Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Monday, July 20, 2009
Plaintiffs' Expert Testimony on General Causation Excluded in Non-Fusarium Eye-Infection Contact-Lens Case Against Bausch & Lomb
Article in AmLaw Litigation Daily -- Shook Hardy Wins Junk Science Dismissal for Bausch & Lomb, by Ben Hallman. Here's an excerpt:
And here's a link to the opinion by Justice Kornreich of the New York Supreme Court, New York County.
BGS
July 20, 2009 in Medical Devices - Misc., Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Friday, April 17, 2009
U.S. Homeowner Health Problems from Chinese Drywall
Article in the Wall Street Journal -- Homeowner Problems With Chinese-Made Drywall Spread, by Michael Corkery. Here's an excerpt:
Fearing that the construction material is making them sick, homeowners are moving out of their houses, filing lawsuits and demanding help from lawmakers. Two U.S. senators have proposed a temporary ban on certain Chinese drywall imports. A Chinese government agency is also investigating, according to a Chinese news report.
The actual health effects of the drywall, which is commonly used to construct interior walls, are still unknown. While homeowners attribute bloody noses, sinus problems and headaches to the drywall, the Florida health department said there is no evidence that gases being emitted from the construction material pose a serious health risk.
BGS
April 17, 2009 in Environmental Torts, Products Liability, Science | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)