Mass Torts vs. Class Actions: A Tale of Two Strategies
Tips and Strategies for Successful Mass Tort Management
NGE On Demand: Insurance Issues in Bankruptcy with Jason Frye
IP|Trend: Discovering Source Code
A popular New Year’s trend is to say “goodbye” to all the things that didn’t serve you in 2023, as you usher in new intentions and habits for 2024. Although there were many great trial outcomes and continuing scientific wins...more
There are few rights more important to civil defendants—particularly corporate entities—than personal jurisdiction, which restricts “‘judicial power not as a matter of sovereignty, but as a matter of individual liberty,’”...more
Harris Beach attorneys Abbie Eliasberg Fuchs, Bradley M. Wanner and Daniel R. Strecker review and analyze key judicial holdings and legal developments in New York, the federal arena and across the country that have affected...more
On June 6, 2022, the Supreme Court of the United States declined to hear petitions seeking review of whether federal courts may exercise personal jurisdiction over claims of nonresident plaintiffs who join Fair Labor...more
In a highly anticipated decision, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court closed out 2021 by striking down Pennsylvania’s consent-by-registration statutory scheme that held that an out-of-state business consented to general personal...more
Four years ago, in Bristol-Myers Squibb v. Superior Court, 137 S. Ct. 1773 (2017), the United States Supreme Court addressed an effort by plaintiffs to bring 600 product liability claims, mostly by non-Californians, in the...more
Interpreting Bristol-Myers : Are Unnamed Members of Nationwide Class Actions ‘Parties’? If So, When? In 2017, the Supreme Court decided Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court of California (BMS), holding that a...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: Recent activity within the federal Courts of Appeals this spring may prompt Supreme Court resolution of a central and unsettled issue concerning personal jurisdiction in the class-action context causing...more
This week, two federal appellate courts published notable opinions on the intersection between personal jurisdiction jurisprudence and Rule 23 class action procedure. The defendants in both cases face nationwide class...more
Class actions bring more complexity to litigating and settling cases, and it can increase substantially when the claims arise from multiple state consumer protection laws. In these cases, determining the applicable law(s) to...more
For years, the plaintiffs’ bar has crammed thousands of non-forum class members into a single action in order to more easily justify broader discovery requests, and to more quickly aggregate statutory damages. And many...more
In 2017, the United States Supreme Court decided the Bristol-Myers Squibb case, which limited state court jurisdiction. Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court, 137 S. Ct. 1773, 1777 (2017). In Bristol-Myers, 600...more
In 2019, significant developments are expected on issues that have been percolating in the mass tort and class action litigation arena for several years. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on cases relating to...more
A few weeks ago, Judge Leigh Martin May in the Northern District of Georgia denied a Defendant’s Rule 12(b)(2) motion to dismiss brought on the basis that, under Bristol-Myers Squibb, the court lacked subject matter...more
As we previously reported, courts continue to sift through the unsettled law left in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Bristol-Myers Squibb v. Superior Court of California. ...more
In Mussat v. IQVIA, Inc., 2018 WL 5311903 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 26, 2018) Judge Virginia M. Kendall of the Northern District of Illinois held that Bristol-Myers Squibb applies to Rule 23 class actions, and consequently struck the...more
A defendant in a talc jury trial intends on appealing a recent verdict reached in a Missouri case involving twenty-two plaintiffs who claimed that the defendant’s talcum powder contained asbestos and that they developed...more
Companies facing mass tort and product liability claims ranging from asbestos to pharmaceuticals have undoubtedly been monitoring developments related to personal jurisdiction in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark...more
While he often kept us guessing about how he might vote in politically significant cases, retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy was far more predictable on class action issues over the course of his 30-year tenure on the Supreme...more
Following the Supreme Court’s landmark personal-jurisdiction decision in Bristol-Myers Squibb, federal district courts have continued to disagree about whether to apply the court’s holding to cases involving nationwide class...more
District courts continue to split on whether to apply the Supreme Court’s holding in Bristol-Myers, a case limiting personal jurisdiction over non-resident multistate mass tort claimants, to the class action context. This...more
On June 19, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision that has the potential to reshape the way class actions are litigated in courts throughout the country. In Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court of California,...more
The District of Columbia district court added to the growing collection of orders opining on whether and to what extent the Supreme Court’s decision in Bristol-Myers Squibb applies to class actions....more
It is no secret that there are certain jurisdictions that plaintiffs’ class action attorneys prefer to file suit, most notably, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami and New York, to name a few. While plaintiffs’ lawyers may have...more
On March 6, the Missouri Supreme Court declined to review the intermediate appellate court’s decision in Fox v. Johnson & Johnson, which vacated a $72 million talc verdict awarded in St. Louis City Court. ...more