Latest / The Jon and Marc Podcast / $185M Monsanto Verdict Reinstated and 74,000+ J&J Talc Cases as First Trial Begins

Transcript

$185M Monsanto Verdict Reinstated and 74,000+ J&J Talc Cases as First Trial Begins · The Jon and Marc Podcast

• 0:09
  Welcome back to this week's episode of Tor Talks.
• 0:12
  It might be getting cold outside, but things are heating
• 0:14
  up in the world of mass towards. We have the one and only Joe
• 0:17
  Fantini here. John is out today, but we have a
• 0:20
  bunch of items to cover for you today after our first Tor Talk
• 0:24
  back from Mass, Tort made perfect.
• 0:26
  Welcome back Joe for Tort Talks. Thanks Mark.
• 0:29
  Excited to be here here with you.
• 0:30
  A lot of developments going on like you mentioned, as we do the
• 0:34
  last Sprint of the final sixty days of 2025 all.
• 0:38
  Right. Let's get into it.
• 0:39
  So J&J Talca Varian cancer trial, the first J&J post
• 0:44
  bankruptcy trial kicks off this week in California.
• 0:48
  What is the latest in this litigation?
• 0:50
  Like you mentioned, we finally have a trial starting.
• 0:52
  This one's in state court in California after J&J failed on
• 0:58
  three different bankruptcy maneuvers over the last couple
• 1:01
  years. It was failed and fortunately
• 1:04
  the bankruptcy court ruled in our favor.
• 1:06
  So finally we have the day in court and the trials kicking
• 1:10
  off. We should expect about a month
• 1:12
  long trial going on in California State court, usually
• 1:15
  a pretty plaintiff friendly venue.
• 1:17
  While that's going on in the state court level, we have
• 1:21
  another good development which is pre trial hearings are going
• 1:24
  to be going forward for the MDL. Hopefully we get the first trial
• 1:28
  there in 2020. 26 The main development, I think in this
• 1:32
  litigation is we've seen about a 20% increase in cases filed from
• 1:37
  December of 2024 through now. Oh boy.
• 1:41
  So right now, J&J is facing about 74,000 lawsuits.
• 1:46
  The numbers estimate that it could get up to 90,000 by the
• 1:50
  end of 2026. Hopefully we can get a
• 1:52
  resolution before that. Oh, man.
• 1:54
  All right. Well, so hopefully we'll have
• 1:56
  some news by the end of the year in the state court with that
• 1:58
  trial hopefully being resolved before the end of 2025.
• 2:02
  Next, Monsanto and Bayer, they had a tough week.
• 2:06
  The Washington Supreme Court reinstated $185 million verdict
• 2:11
  related to PCB contamination, and a judge granted final
• 2:15
  approval to a $38 million settlement that allege, in part,
• 2:19
  Bayer downplayed the risks associated with acquiring
• 2:22
  Monsanto. Like you mentioned, Mark, pretty
• 2:24
  tough week there for Monsanto and Bayer.
• 2:27
  The first development was a case that had a verdict back in 2021.
• 2:32
  Monsanto appealed that contamination case up.
• 2:35
  They won on appeal. But then fortunately, the
• 2:38
  Washington State Supreme Court just came down, reinstated the
• 2:42
  $185 million verdict in that PCB case.
• 2:45
  Not a mass tort, but definitely shows you how Monsanto has these
• 2:50
  other cases going on beyond Roundup.
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  And then tied in somewhat to Roundup is that final approval
• 2:56
  of the $38 million class action settlement.
• 3:00
  A lot of it relates to the investors alleging that Bear
• 3:03
  really downplayed the potential liabilities that Monsanto faced
• 3:08
  in the Roundup litigation. So that just got finalized.
• 3:11
  And then what's going on with Roundup overall is we're waiting
• 3:14
  to get the next trial started. I don't think we're going to
• 3:17
  have any trials in 2025. There'll be some trial action
• 3:21
  hopefully in 26 in Missouri State court.
• 3:24
  All that's ongoing while we're still waiting to hear from the
• 3:27
  solicitor general about whether they think the Supreme Court to
• 3:30
  take up this preemption ruling. So a lot of activity eyes are
• 3:34
  still focusing on Roundup throughout the last two months.
• 3:37
  In 2025, it's. Very exciting news.
• 3:39
  I'm looking forward to getting more updates on that one.
• 3:41
  All right, we haven't talked about this one a little bit, but
• 3:44
  very exciting, very big mass tort, social media addiction.
• 3:47
  The initial trial was set to begin November 17th in
• 3:50
  California State court, but that has been postponed to January.
• 3:53
  What can you tell us about that development?
• 3:55
  Similar to like we've seen a lot of these other mass torts, we
• 3:58
  have parallel actions going on in state court and in the MDL.
• 4:02
  We were really excited about the initial trial was supposed to
• 4:05
  kick off in about two weeks. That ended up getting postponed
• 4:09
  a couple months. Basically what ended up
• 4:11
  happening was there was more evidence that came out that the
• 4:14
  plaintiff in that claim might have suffered additional
• 4:17
  injuries, might have been subject to some predatory
• 4:20
  actions. So the court allowed for
• 4:22
  additional discovery to on go in that case while really setting
• 4:26
  some firm trial dates. Hopefully in 26, it looks like
• 4:30
  there's going to be 3 trials set that first one towards the end
• 4:33
  of January, then in April, then in June.
• 4:36
  So if we can get all three of those trials or even 2 of them,
• 4:39
  that would be big. It doesn't look like we're going
• 4:42
  to get a trial in 25, but 26, the pressure is going to be on
• 4:45
  the big tech companies. Hopefully we get some good
• 4:48
  results in those cases. Going to be a big year for
• 4:51
  Social Media Addiction MDL going into 2026, All right.
• 4:54
  Last but not least, paraquat reports indicate that a
• 4:58
  settlement was reached in the MDL for some of the cases.
• 5:02
  What is happening in this litigation overall for the rest
• 5:04
  of 2025? South, just like we usually have
• 5:07
  in all of the Mass Torch, we have state court action that's
• 5:10
  focused in Philadelphia and then we have the MDL.
• 5:13
  So in the MDL, there's about 6400 total cases.
• 5:17
  Reports indicate that some of the cases ended up reaching
• 5:20
  settlement. We had this really unique
• 5:22
  hearing where the judge brought in a plaintiff attorney who in
• 5:27
  essence the court felt might have been trying to undermine
• 5:31
  some of the settlement in the MDL, real unique hearing.
• 5:34
  And basically the attorney stated she wasn't doing that.
• 5:39
  She was just trying to really share information for her
• 5:42
  clients and other cases. Because while we have this
• 5:45
  potential settlement in the MDL, the Philadelphia state court
• 5:48
  actions where there's about 1400 cases is ongoing.
• 5:52
  So there was supposed to be the initial bellwether trial in the
• 5:55
  fall. It appears that case settled.
• 5:58
  So the next case scheduled for trials in January in
• 6:01
  Philadelphia. So we'll see if there ends up
• 6:03
  being a broader settlement, including the Philadelphia cases
• 6:07
  along with the rest of the MDL cases in the next two months.
• 6:11
  But the pressures on the defendants in paraquat with that
• 6:14
  Philadelphia trial court setting in January 26, yeah.
• 6:18
  A lot of pressure coming down in 2026 with paraquat getting some
• 6:21
  momentum, Random getting some momentum.
• 6:23
  Hopefully we'll get some solutions here by the end of
• 6:25
  2026 with those litigations. Yeah, A.
• 6:27
  Lot going on, so we'll keep you guys updated here at Tortalk.
• 6:31
  Thanks, Joe. Once again, thank you everyone
• 6:32
  for listening and make sure you like and subscribe to the
• 6:35
  channel for future updates, comments, or any questions you
• 6:37
  guys have. Once again, this is the most
• 6:39
  important 10 minutes in Mass Torts.
• 6:41
  Thank you for tuning in and thank you Joe for the wonderful
• 6:44
  updates. Thanks for having me, Mark.