Latest / The Jon and Marc Podcast / Roundup Shifts. Meta Sweats. J&J Fights Back | Tort Talk

Transcript

Roundup Shifts. Meta Sweats. J&J Fights Back | Tort Talk · The Jon and Marc Podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome to Tor Talk. I'm Mark Rieu, joined as always
• 0:03
  by John Robinson and Joe Fantini.
• 0:05
  We have a massive show today. We're breaking down the brand
• 0:08
  new Roundup class action filing in Missouri and giving you the
• 0:12
  inside scoop on Mark Zuckerberg's testimonies 3 weeks
• 0:17
  into the social media addiction trial.
• 0:19
  Plus, we'll discuss J&J's escalating legal battle with
• 0:23
  Beasley Allen in the talc litigation and preview the Bear
• 0:27
  hugger trial kicking off in Texas this week.
• 0:29
  There is a lot to cover, Let's get started.
• 0:32
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• 0:35
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• 0:51
  Yeah, right after we finished filming Tortalk last week, we
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  had news break in Roundup. Big, big news in the Roundup
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  litigation with the filing of a proposed class action.
• 1:00
  The Missouri State court. Joe, what does everyone need to
• 1:02
  know about this filing? Like you mentioned, John, that
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  filing just came down last week on February 17th and basically
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  it's a proposed class action for all the current pending cases
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  and then also all of the future cases.
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  The total settlement amount is $7.3 billion to be paid over a
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  course of anywhere from 16 to 20 years.
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  The next step in this part of the litigation is to go forward
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  with the preliminary approval hearing.
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  So when the motion was filed, they were seeking to have the
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  hearing within 15 days. Right now it hasn't been set
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  yet, but what I'm hearing is there could potentially be a
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  motion seeking some sort of extension of time to respond to
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  the class action motion. Basically, the attorneys, the
• 1:50
  parties, the plaintiffs, they're trying to get a little bit more
• 1:53
  time to digest and fully understand what's in the deal
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  because it's a really complicated deal.
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  Hundreds of paces took about two years of negotiation to get us
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  to this point. It seems like people want to do
• 2:07
  a deal but want a little bit more information, understanding
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  before getting to this next stage.
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  This took me a little by surprise when I saw the news.
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  Does this seem like it's a win for the plaintiffs or for the
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  defendants? It would be a win for the
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  defendants because this is a way for them to wrap up all the
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  future cases. So we saw before Monsanto and
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  Bear made a misstep when they settled for $10 billion because
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  there were all of these additional cases that weren't
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  resolved. So as part of this deal, all
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  future cases, people weren't even diagnosed with NHL yet.
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  They'd go into the settlement. So it would bring about finality
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  for him. So it'd be a win.
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  And then I think it could also be a win for some of these
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  plaintiffs because this litigation's been going on for a
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  really long time. There is some pressure coming
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  from from the White House, coming from this potential
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  Supreme Court ruling on the plaintiff.
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  So I think getting some sort of compensation would be good.
• 3:02
  The exact numbers that needs to be worked out.
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  We love to see the numbers be higher for each of the
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  individual plaintiffs. How does this affect people who
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  are still acquiring Roundup cases?
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  That's to be determined, right? This settlement won't include
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  anybody who has a case pending in the MDL, but they did put a
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  provision in there that they want to limit attorneys fees to
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  22% on any cases signed after February 17th, 2026.
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  Whether or not that's a valid provision, whether that would
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  impact a case, say you signed tomorrow and filed a New Jersey
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  State court, that's to be determined.
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  So we'll see if that provision ends up.
• 3:41
  Holding moving on to the social immediate addiction trial.
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  We are three weeks into this trial and have heard from
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  Zuckerberg and other Meta executives.
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  What have we learned so far in this litigation?
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  Yeah, there's been a lot of excitement and fireworks going
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  on in the courtroom. I know John was just out there
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  last week giving us a great update, but basically we're
• 4:01
  hearing from all the key players.
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  Zuckerberg, by all counts, he didn't do great on the stand.
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  He was a little bit confrontational.
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  He defended his product and his company, as we'd expect.
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  But now that we've gone past those kind of key layer of
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  testimony, we're really getting into the evidence phase.
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  And so it just came out, one of the pieces of evidence in this
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  case is that there was internal communications at Meta in 2018
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  that they were saying, hey, it appears potentially that this is
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  causing addiction. We should really conduct a study
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  and look into it and how we can make changes to the platform to
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  protect the users. Ultimately, like we always see
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  in these type of cases, they didn't do the study and instead
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  they pivot it and they made some other changes that they're
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  highlighting when they're on the stand about these parental
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  controls or the amount of time that the users can use.
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  But what this really does is lays that evidence that Meta,
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  they knew going back almost a decade, probably before that,
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  we'll see in the evidence that this could cause some sort of
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  addiction. And instead of addressing it
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  because it would need to result in changes being made to the
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  platform, they went another easier way and didn't address
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  the problem head on. So this is the type of testimony
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  and key facts we'll hear over the coming days.
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  It doesn't look like we're going to get a verdict this this week,
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  but probably by the end of next week, I anticipate we're going
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  to hear from the jury. So it's really exciting to see
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  what's going to end up happening in this case.
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  But the the big tech companies, they're definitely on their
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  heels. I thought I was reading The
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  Onion when I first saw the article come across my desk
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  about Zuckerberg staff wearing the Meta AI glasses in the
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  courtroom, but that actually happened and they got
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  reprimanded by the court. Right.
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  Yeah, they did. So it's hard to really believe
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  what what's going on there. And now that's all playing out,
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  but I think it goes and it helps the plaintiffs.
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  Ultimately that type of behavior, it kind of shows a
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  little bit of a disregard not only for the court, but really
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  for the plaintiffs and what these cases are about.
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  They have this harmful product and instead of noticing what
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  these problems are making changes, they're really just out
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  there trying to protect themselves.
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  Last week we had a lot of attention on talc, not focus on
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  the clients, but rather on J&J's fight with Beasley Allen.
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  What's going on there and what can you tell us about what's
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  happening with Beasley Allen? Yeah, Beasley Allen's been at
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  the forefront of this litigation for about 15 years at this
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  point, and they've been fighting with J&J at every turn on behalf
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  of their clients and pretty much all the other plaintiffs in this
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  litigation in their leadership role.
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  We saw them get disqualified in the New Jersey MCL from their
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  role. And then right after that, the
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  following week, we saw Beasley Allen being the lead plaintiff's
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  attorney in that Philadelphia case that went and got the
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  $250,000 verdict. We also know they were one of
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  the attorneys in the California trial before that.
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  So they're intimately familiar with this case and they have a
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  lot of insider information that they've gathered from doing all
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  the depositions and seeing all the documents.
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  And J&J seems to have adapted this policy where they're going
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  to attack Beasley Allen, try to get them out of the picture, and
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  then have another firm step in and maybe not be as successful
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  as Beasley Allen could be. So now what we're seeing is
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  they're going and they're fighting Beasley Allen this time
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  in the MDL, trying to get them removed like they did in New
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  Jersey State court. Meanwhile, while all that's
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  going on, what everybody should be paying attention to is kind
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  of getting lost in the in the news cycle here.
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  We really got some good momentum when it was determined that the
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  judge is going to let in the experts in the MDL.
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  And we really need to get those cases pushed forward to trial.
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  Whether it's Beasley, Allen or another firm that steps up and
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  represents these plaintiffs, we need to keep getting more
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  pressure on Jay and Day to bring this litigation to an end.
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  We saw J&J's remarks after the $250,000 verdict.
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  They acted like it was nothing. That's really not going to get
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  this litigation resolved. Hopefully the plaintiffs can
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  keep moving the cases to trial. Hopefully we could get maybe 6
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  more trials before the end of the year, get some good verdicts
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  and bring about a resolution to this litigation.
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  While J&J is really just focus on Beasley at this point.
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  Yeah, let's keep that momentum going to hopefully bring closure
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  to this litigation that's been going on for seemingly forever.
• 8:35
  Yeah. No, that's, that's definitely
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  what we want. And I know we're going to talk
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  about another litigation that that's been going on forever.
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  Next. On that note, Bear Hugger, we
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  have a trial starting this week in Texas State court.
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  What are we watching for at this upcoming trial, Joe?
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  Yeah. This is another one of those
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  legacy mass torts that we talked about.
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  We're in the 12th year of this litigation and we just are
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  starting the jury selection in the fourth trial, so 12 years to
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  get to the 4th trial. Last year we had a trial and it
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  was a mistrial was declared. So that was really the closest
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  we've gotten recently on getting some serious pressure on Bear
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  Hugger. But this case is in state court
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  outside of the MDL, which is in Minnesota.
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  This trial is going to be in Texas State court.
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  It's a plaintiff's case. So we're hoping that we're going
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  to get a lot of pressure on three M in this case, bring
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  about some of the evidence. And it's interesting because
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  this case has been around so long on the plaintiff side, we
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  feel like the evidence is getting stronger and stronger
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  and more studies are coming out. So this will be a lengthy trial,
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  could be a month long just due to the very scientific aspect of
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  it. Hopefully, we'll have a good
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  verdict to share and then we can continue to apply pressure in
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  the MDL, get some more cases to trial.
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  That's the key component, what we need to do in these legacy
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  mass torts because the defendants have done a really
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  good job. 2 huge companies, 3M and Johnson and Johnson are
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  delaying the trials and that's what it seems like their defense
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  strategy is. And hopefully we can get the
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  trial date set, get the pressure, get the cases resolved
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  and get the client some compensation.
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  Yeah, hopefully by the time people see this or maybe by next
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  week's tour talk, we'll have some more progress on what's
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  happening in Roundup, maybe even jury deliberations in the social
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  media addiction trial, some other things going on as well.
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  We're hearing a lot of rumors of some potential mass torts that
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  may be presented formally at MTMP, which we're really only
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  about 6 weeks away from at this point.
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  As always, thank you everybody for joining us.
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  The best 10 minutes in mass torts each week you're on tour
• 10:46
  talk with Joe Fantini. We'll see you next week.