Latest / The Jon and Marc Podcast / Daubert Deadlines: The Make-or-Break Month for Weight Loss and Hair Relaxer

Transcript

Daubert Deadlines: The Make-or-Break Month for Weight Loss and Hair Relaxer · The Jon and Marc Podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome to Tour Talk Live. We are live from Mass Tours
• 0:03
  Puerto Rico. I have myself, John and Joe with
• 0:06
  us today. Joe is back home in
• 0:07
  Philadelphia. John and I are at the wonderful
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  Vanderbilt Hotel in Condado, Puerto Rico.
• 0:13
  We have a very busy day to get into you.
• 0:16
  Just because we're traveling doesn't mean we take a week off.
• 0:18
  Let's hop right into it. Yep, Joe, thanks for joining us.
• 0:22
  Wish you could be here. Weather is beautiful, but I'm
• 0:24
  sure Pennsylvania is nice as well.
• 0:26
  Some people call the Pennsylvania the San Juan of
• 0:31
  North Waka. The San Juan of North America.
• 0:36
  The San Juan of the North. All right, what's the first one
• 0:39
  we're going into? Yeah.
• 0:40
  So talking about social media addiction, it's been the topic
• 0:44
  for weeks now after that verdict came through in Los Angeles.
• 0:49
  But it doesn't stop there. Fresh off of the $375 million
• 0:52
  reward in New Mexico for a public nuisance against Meta, we
• 0:57
  now are entering phase two of the trial.
• 0:59
  New Mexico is seeking $3.7 billion in damages.
• 1:04
  They're just getting hit from all fronts, whether it's the
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  civil actions or these actions from the attorney general's, not
• 1:11
  just in New Mexico, but across the country.
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  Joe, what's going on here? What can we expect to happen in
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  social media addiction? And and did I hear that right?
• 1:18
  3.7 B. Billion with a billion with ABA
• 1:20
  lot of agencies sell services, SEO packages, paid media
• 1:24
  packages, social packages, but our digital doesn't really
• 1:28
  operate that way. We build acquisition systems
• 1:30
  while staying tactic agnostic about how they get there.
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  And we're founder owned. It's Mark and I, so we're not
• 1:37
  going to force your law firm into whatever the agency happens
• 1:40
  to sell. If that's the kind of alignment
• 1:42
  you want, check out RR Digital at rrdigitalmedia.com.
• 1:47
  Yeah, that, that's right. So basically like you mentioned
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  there, John, we had the initial trial, the Attorney General from
• 1:54
  New Mexico brought the action due to the public nuisance.
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  They got 375 billion here. They're claiming that Meta is a
• 2:03
  public nuisance. So here, here they're seeking
• 2:06
  $3.7 billion. They're saying that medic
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  created this epidemic where everybody's addicted and they
• 2:13
  need this money to help remedy it.
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  On the other end, Medic saying that this amount of award salt
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  and the remedies that they're seeking is untenable and even
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  threatening to pull out in New Mexico if such a ward gets
• 2:29
  entered against them. Mehta is arguing basically if
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  they created a public nuisance, so do alcohol companies that
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  then lead to people driving drunk.
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  So it's a kind of new theory that they're bringing the first
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  time it's ever been brought. But the numbers really big.
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  And like you mentioned, all of the other attorney generals from
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  every state really is watching to see what happens in the trial
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  that's going to be decided just by the judge, not in front of a
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  jury. So what was awarded in the 375
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  and how is that different from the 3.7 that they're seeking?
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  So that was they were saying that they violated the consumer
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  protection laws. So for each violation there was
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  a penalty. I think it was maybe $5000 for
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  each violation. That ended up being 375,000,000.
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  Here it's a different claim. They're saying that medic caused
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  the public nuisance here and that's why they're seeking that
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  3.7 billion. First time I've heard that one.
• 3:28
  Yeah, I mean the the Domino's keep falling against Meta.
• 3:31
  This is very interesting. And we and you're seeing this
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  happen across the country. Attorney generals from states
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  all across the nation are pursuing claims not just against
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  Meta. We saw it against Roblox couple.
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  Weeks ago. This is wow.
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  This isn't a federal charge. This is a state charge.
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  So if they win any substantial amount of money times, you know,
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  49 more states, this could be a very large amount of damages for
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  Meta potentially. Yeah, exactly.
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  And that, that just shows how important it is to have this
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  multi prong kind of attack in these type of litigations,
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  right? We have the MDL, we have state
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  court proceedings, we have a GS. The pressure is really mounting.
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  So hopefully we can get a good result here, get some more
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  pressure, get some changes, and then that will help all of the,
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  you know, personal injury cases that we've been focusing on
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  mainly. I'm looking forward to seeing
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  how this progresses. I think we all all are very
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  intrigued on all the meta lawsuits that are going on right
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  now. Yeah, I mean, and, and don't let
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  Meta fool you, right? 3.7 billion is a lot of money,
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  but for Meta it's not that much. Yeah.
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  I pay like partially that much, just an ad spend per month.
• 4:38
  Moving on to Roundup. So last week we talked about the
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  oral arguments for preemption ruling.
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  What's going on with that? What are the updates here, Joe?
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  Yeah. It happened this week.
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  Yeah, right. Yeah.
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  So we talked about the oral argument before the Supreme
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  Court. We're expecting a decision in
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  June. See how that turns out.
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  Not sure if everybody on the plaintiff side super optimistic
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  about that, but while that was going on, we also had the
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  hearing for the basically injunctive relief before the MDL
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  judge. Basically a couple law firms
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  were seeking relief from this Missouri class action
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  settlement. There was a hearing on April
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  30th. During the hearing, the MGL
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  judge said that it felt like this settlement was dirty and he
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  felt like the opt out provisions was bizarre and they've never
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  seen anything like this. However, he said it wasn't
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  really his place to get involved and ultimately it'd be up to the
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  Missouri Supreme Court or the United States Supreme Court to
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  see if this settlement was appropriate.
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  But in the meantime, it doesn't seem like there's anything
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  that's going to stop this settlement from going forward.
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  So we have about a month left until the June 4th opt out
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  deadline, need to have the wet signatures for that.
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  And then in early July, we have the final approval hearing.
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  It looks like this settlement's going forward regardless of the
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  issues and questions people have brought to date.
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  June. 4th less than a month to get all the wet signatures and
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  it's still an insane deadline Yeah it's.
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  It's coming up on us, so make sure you guys are in touch with
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  your clients evaluating their case, you know, see how much
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  they would get and if you think it'd be worthwhile for them to
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  opt out of the settlement. Otherwise, all indications are
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  it's going forward. There's nothing really
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  substantial in the way of this settlement coming to final
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  approval. So be aware of this deadline,
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  certainly. Definitely keep your ear to the
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  streets and round up for the next 30 to 45 days because a
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  lot's going to be happening there.
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  Let's talk about Suboxone. So we have a deadline coming up
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  in that MDL. What is that deadline about and
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  what do firms and individuals need to be aware of pertaining
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  to that deadline? Yeah, another important deadline
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  coming up. This one's in June 1st.
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  So back when there was potentially a statue coming up
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  with regard to the label change in this case, the court allowed
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  people to file a bundled complaint with multi plaintiffs.
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  The deadline to submit the the fact sheet, the PAQ is coming up
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  on June 1st. So for this, you need the fact
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  sheet signed by the client, you need the proof of usage of
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  Suboxone, and then you also need medical records showing the
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  proof of injury after Suboxone usage.
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  So everybody's really scrambling to meet that deadline.
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  Some of these clients are a little bit hard to get in touch
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  with to make sure you're reaching out.
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  While we have that going on, we're starting to get the kind
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  of court guidance on what's going to be happening with the
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  bellwether trials. It doesn't look like it's going
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  to be in 2017, really looking like the beginning of 2018.
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  But what everybody needs to really worry about is that June
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  1st deadline. Don't let your kick your case,
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  get kicked out for missing the discovery.
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  So make sure you're on top of that staying in touch with your
• 7:57
  clients. And I am getting a quick update
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  from the box. I believe Joe meant to say 2027
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  and 2028, not 20/17/2018. Yeah, you're, you're right.
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  That was that was before we started doing torque talk.
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  So 2017 and then 282017 not applicable. 2027 doesn't look
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  like we're going to have a bellwether then either. 2028 is
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  when we'll have that initial Suboxone bellwether.
• 8:24
  Moving on to weight loss, we have the Dauber hearing
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  scheduled for May 12th. What's going on?
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  What should we expect? Yeah.
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  So we have parallel tracks going on.
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  We have the MDL in New Jersey State court and then we also
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  have the gasser intestinal injuries and then the vision
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  loss cases. This hearings just going to be
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  focused on the gastrointestinal injuries.
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  We'll see what injuries are going to survive.
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  If you guys remember, 6 months or so ago, the judge came down
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  with the a ruling pretty strict. We weren't exactly expecting
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  this saying that you couldn't have a differential diagnosis.
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  You needed a gastric emptying studying to show that the client
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  had gastroparesis. We're seeing over 85% of the
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  injuries in this litigation and Bob gastroparesis.
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  So following the Dahlberg hearing, we'll see if any other
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  injuries, you know, prolonged hospitalization, vomiting, you
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  know, maybe some sort of bowel obstruction, if any of those
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  other injuries survive the Dahlberg challenge or if this is
• 9:23
  slowly going to be focused on gastroparesis, we'll have a
• 9:27
  decision probably 60 to 90 days out from that hearing next week
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  on May 12th. Yes, similar to weight loss.
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  Also in hair relaxer, we have a dubber hearing coming up.
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  That's the May 15th I believe. What should we expect in that
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  Dubber hearing? Yeah, a little bit further
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  behind it and hair relaxer, May 15th, the deadline for the reply
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  briefs for Dahlberg. So you know, initially each side
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  does their initial Dahlberg motion, then the other side gets
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  a chance for a response, then the reply is the initial filing
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  party gets to come back and say why the other party was wrong.
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  So we'll get that fully briefed. We'll get the hearing scheduled
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  in that. That's going to be in the
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  beginning of the summer. And then we're waiting to see
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  whether or not the three cancers survive.
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  So we have endometriin, uterine and then ovarian.
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  Are all three cancers going to survive the Dahlberg challenge
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  there or only do 2 out of the three come out?
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  So it's really important to follow along these litigations,
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  especially these Dahlberg hearings.
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  You'll get a clear sense of what type of cases are going to be
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  compensable. And then MDL, we'll bring you
• 10:34
  guys the updates in real time as we always do on Tort Talk.
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  Yeah. And this had these dauber
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  hearings and have some significant impacts on our next
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  power rankings, says might, might very much move some people
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  up, might move some people out of the top 10.
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  Yeah, definitely. You know, once we get past that
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  Dauber hearing, you usually see the cases increase in the power
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  rankings because the uncertainty isn't there, right?
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  We know clearly what injuries are supported, what can we get
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  in front of the jewelry on. So as those cases get more
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  mature, they usually climb in the power rankings.
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  Yeah. But even beyond dauber hearings,
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  we have a handful of trials slated from now through the
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  summer. We've got the next social media
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  addiction trial coming. We've got more Uber sex abuse
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  trials coming up. There's just a flurry of
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  activity like we haven't seen before in mass torts.
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  And it's for a number of different reasons.
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  And it's it's really great to see.
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  We're here in Puerto Rico. There's already some buzz.
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  The conference officially starts on Wednesday.
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  Right now, as we're recording this, it's Tuesday morning, but
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  we will definitely be speaking to all the decision makers, all
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  the leaders across all the litigations that we've been
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  talking about for months. We're going to try and get some
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  inside scoop and what's going on behind the scenes.
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  Well, Joe's not here to get the whispers of the people like he
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  normally does. We have some inside moles that
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  we feeding us the information of what everyone's talking about.
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  We'll be reporting back next week, so don't worry.
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  Our ears are the street. We have our people around.
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  We'll report back with what we find.
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  Yep, Yep. Joe, we miss you, Puerto Rico
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  misses you. Enjoy the San Juan of the North.
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  Safe travels and and all your escapades in the coming weeks
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  for your own trials and and those of you watching, stay
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  tuned. We've got more coming from
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  Puerto Rico. We'll catch you next time on
• 12:17
  tour talk.