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Well that was something. When we left you last Thursday, the jury for the third bellwether trial in the Pinnacle Hip Implant MDL had just started its deliberations, and we once again expressed concern over the trial’s evidentiary and procedural rulings and the effect they might have on the verdict. Our concern-level was high. Last time, amidst similar concerns, the jury came back with a half-billion dollar verdict.

Apparently that was chump change. Everything is bigger in Texas. And this time it was over one billion. Let that sink in. Over one billion. That’s a massive amount of money. Has anyone even ever won that in a lottery? It’s 1,000 winners of Who Wants to Be A Millionaire. And then you have to add about 40 more winners because the actual verdict was about $1.04 billion.…

Continue Reading The One-Billion-Dollar Verdict

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With one sentence, a circuit judge signaled yesterday that the Fifth Circuit is watching with acute interest what’s going on in the Pinnacle Hip Implant MDL in Dallas:

Although the district court misapplied Rules 43(a) and 45(c), I concur in the denial of the petition for a writ of mandamus.

Oh my. While that may not be a shot across the bow of the MDL bellwether process, it’s an attention-grabber.

Technically, this was a loss for the defendants. They asked the Fifth Circuit to direct the MDL court to vacate an order authorizing plaintiffs to subpoena company witnesses no matter where they are in the country to testify at a bellwether trial via satellite or other contemporaneous transmission. And the Fifth Circuit denied the petition. But petitions for writs of mandamus are always lost. The possibility of victory is so slim that the legal background sections of most petitions actually find it useful to argue that it is untrue that writs of mandamus are “never” issued. It’s only “hardly ever.”…

Continue Reading The Defense’s Mandamus Petition in the Pinnacle Hip Implant MDL Yields an Unusual Victory

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Here we go. Again. The third bellwether trial in the Pinnacle Hip Implant MDL starts on October 3 (less than two weeks away), and the parties began picking a jury two days ago. The lawyers are, no doubt, hunkered down in their hotels and war rooms preparing for a trial that could last through the start of the holidays. And much of the mass tort world will be watching. That’s because the jury in the last bellwether trial came back with an incredible half-billion-dollar verdict at the end of a multi-plaintiff trial in which the court issued a long series of controversial evidentiary and procedural rulings.

And now, even before opening statements, there are ominous signs for the defense at this third bellwether trial. Three days ago, the court issued an order sua sponte—that is, with no briefing—confirming that it is consolidating six different plaintiffs at this one trial. That’s a lot of plaintiffs and no doubt a lot of differences. It’s hard to imagine jurors effectively keeping straight the case-specific evidence presented by each of these half-dozen plaintiffs, all while trying to sift through and understand mountains of complex scientific and medical information and avoid allowing their feelings as to any one plaintiff to affect their judgment as to the others. Without even considering the facts of the cases, a six-plaintiff trial is not good for defendants. There’s a reason that plaintiffs’ lawyers prefer multi-plaintiff trials and that defendants do not.…

Continue Reading Here Comes the Next Bellwether Trial in the Pinnacle Hip Implant MDL

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This post comes from the non-Reed Smith side of the blog.

We’ve been posting for a few months about the procedural and evidentiary controversies that have arisen in the Pinnacle Hip Implant MDL bellwether process. The second bellwether trial involved significant evidentiary and procedural rulings that raised eyebrows across the defense bar (discussed here and here). After that trial unsurprisingly produced a ½ billion dollar jury verdict, the defense asked the MDL Court to stay further bellwether trials so that the Fifth Circuit could review those rulings. No luck. Instead, the MDL Court ordered that the next bellwether trial should happen—and quickly (discussed here). After all that, and with the third bellwether trial approaching fast, the defense must feel like the coyote lying flat on the ground staring up at the bottom of a plummeting anvil coming at him a second time.

Undaunted, however, the defense has now filed a motion to continue the third bellwether trial, a motion that raises serious concerns about the time allotted to “work-up” the plaintiffs’ cases that will be involved in the trial. The defense argues that the allotted time is simply too short, not providing enough time for the complex medical issues underlying each plaintiff’s case to be developed and understood so that a trial can produce the type of verdicts that can advance the MDL process. To illustrate this, the defense compared the discovery and pre-trial periods that led up to the second bellwether trial (Aoki) to those leading up to this trial:

  • In Aoki, there were 11 months between case selection and trial (2/27/2015-1/11/2016); here, by contrast, there are just 3 ½ months between case selection and trial (6/10/2016-9/26/2016).
  • In Aoki, there were more than seven months between case selection and the due dates for defendants’ expert reports (2/27/2015-10/9/2015); here, by contrast, there are just 2 ½ months between case selection and the due date for defendants’ expert reports (6/10/2016-8/26/2016).
  • The Aoki schedule afforded defendants eight weeks to respond to plaintiffs’ expert reports (8/14/2015-10/9/2015); here, by contrast, defendants are being given just two weeks to analyze and respond to plaintiffs’ expert reports.

(Defense Br. at 9.)…

Continue Reading The Pinnacle Hip Implant MDL Continues—with a Motion for a Continuance

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This comes from the non-Reed Smith side of the blog.

Just over two weeks ago, the defendants in the Pinnacle Hip Implant MDL petitioned the Fifth Circuit for a writ of mandamus (see here) directing the trial court to enter judgment on a verdict rendered by a jury last March in the second bellwether trial, a verdict awarding a half-billion dollars to five plaintiffs.  Defendants needed a judgment to clear the way for an appeal of the trial court’s controversial evidentiary and procedural rulings in that trial, rulings about which we’ve blogged multiple times (here and here).  Defendants also asked the Fifth Circuit to direct the trial court to stay further bellwether trials (the third is scheduled for September) pending the Fifth Circuit’s review of those ruling so that, if they are overturned, the same rulings would not infect subsequent bellwether trials.  This petition was undoubtedly a Hail Mary. Writs of mandamus are rare.

But the defendants may have already won. Last week, the trial court entered judgment (and reduced the jury’s award as it was required to do by statute), and the defendants now can file a proper appeal to the Fifth Circuit.  To coopt Hemingway, the court entered that judgment in two ways: “Gradually, and then suddenly.” So, why suddenly?  Did the defendants’ petition prompt it?  Who knows?  But keep in mind that the trial court still hasn’t entered judgment on the first bellwether trial, even though the jury in that trial rendered its verdict well over a year ago.…

Continue Reading The Pinnacle Hip Implant MDL Court Finally Enters Judgment

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We missed a day this week, so here’s an extra post to make up for it.

This opinion, Redman v. RadioShack Corp., Nos. 14‐1470, et al., slip op. (7th Cir. Sept. 19, 2014), doesn’t even mention cy pres, but its rationale could be saying (like we have), “cy pres, no way.”

Redman…

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