Latest / The Jon and Marc Podcast / $40M Talc Verdict, $32M NEC Win & JPML Creates 2 New MDLs to Close 2025

Transcript

$40M Talc Verdict, $32M NEC Win & JPML Creates 2 New MDLs to Close 2025 · The Jon and Marc Podcast

• 0:09
  Welcome to Tortalk. This is the last Tortalk of 2025
• 0:13
  before we head into the holiday season.
• 0:15
  And we have some huge news that actually Joe Fantini broke last
• 0:19
  Friday late at night. I saw the message come through.
• 0:22
  We had a $40 million verdict come down and talk.
• 0:26
  What can you tell us about the verdict and how it impacts the
• 0:28
  litigation moving forward, Joe? Like you mentioned, John, great
• 0:31
  news coming out late last week, a jury in Los Angeles came down
• 0:36
  a $40 million verdict in favor of two plaintiffs.
• 0:39
  It was $18 million awarded to 1 plaintiff, 22 million awarded to
• 0:44
  the other plaintiff. This was interesting verdict
• 0:47
  because there was no punitive damages.
• 0:49
  Punitive damages are damages that are awarded to punish the
• 0:53
  company for their reckless conduct.
• 0:55
  So this was all compensatory damages and immediately after,
• 1:00
  and they did what they always do, they vowed to fight on and
• 1:04
  said they're going to appeal the decision.
• 1:05
  They won 16 to 17 cases. The jury was wrong and the fight
• 1:10
  goes on. In reality, what's going to
• 1:12
  happen is we have a number of bellwether trials scheduled
• 1:14
  through 2026. So I think this is going to give
• 1:17
  us a lot of momentum going into the other trials.
• 1:20
  And hopefully this is the playbook that we can follow to
• 1:22
  get the jury on our side and put up some big numbers to finally
• 1:26
  bring an end to this litigation more than 15 years after start
• 1:30
  it. Huge news.
• 1:31
  So for those of you that that do not follow Joe on LinkedIn, I
• 1:35
  recommend you go and click that follow button on Joe's LinkedIn
• 1:39
  profile because he breaks news as it happens.
• 1:41
  We try to bring you guys the updates every week at a
• 1:44
  consolidated format. So you should subscribe here too
• 1:46
  to get notified and we release the newest tort talks.
• 1:48
  But please make sure you follow Joe directly if you want to get
• 1:52
  the latest updates. Mark, you want to roll us into
• 1:54
  the next case? On to the next one, $32 million
• 1:58
  NEC verdict. Another big verdict in favor of
• 2:00
  plaintiffs, this time coming out of Connecticut against Yale
• 2:04
  Hospital. What happened in this case, Joe?
• 2:06
  This was a little bit of a unique case.
• 2:08
  Typically in the NEC cases, the lawsuits have been filed against
• 2:13
  the manufacturers, mostly Abbott.
• 2:15
  But what happened in this case was unfortunately, the minor
• 2:18
  plaintiff ended up passing away. And after the child was born in
• 2:22
  2018, the mother and family insisted that the child was only
• 2:27
  given milk from the mother. Unknown to them, the hospital
• 2:30
  decided to mix some of the mother's milk with this cow
• 2:34
  milk. And ultimately this ended up
• 2:36
  causing problems for the child who developed NEC.
• 2:39
  And because the family wasn't warned by Yale Hospital, it
• 2:43
  ended up resulting in this huge verdict, 32,000,000 in favor of
• 2:47
  plaintiffs. That brings our total to above
• 2:49
  500 million in these NEC cases. It'll be interesting to see
• 2:53
  going forward how this impacts the cases, but I think we'll see
• 2:57
  a lot of cases where we're naming the manufacturer bit and
• 3:00
  then also the hospitals because they're the ones that are
• 3:03
  failing to warn about these risks associated with this
• 3:06
  litigation. So that's something that's going
• 3:08
  to be changing going forward, I'm sure.
• 3:10
  Yeah, this is a really interesting update because like
• 3:12
  you said, they've been primarily only going after the
• 3:15
  manufacturer and this opens up a whole new Ave. for this
• 3:17
  litigation, making all the hospitals where these premature
• 3:21
  babies are liable for giving it to them.
• 3:23
  The fact pattern is is the same, right?
• 3:26
  It's showing that the use of cow's milk given to a premature
• 3:29
  baby could potentially lead to NEC regardless of whether or not
• 3:32
  it happened in the hospital, which would potentially be a
• 3:34
  medical malpractice case or a product liability case from the
• 3:38
  formula itself. Yeah, that's exactly true.
• 3:40
  So it just kind of brings another defendant into it
• 3:43
  sometimes. What we see in these cases is
• 3:46
  that the defendants point at each other, the manufacturers.
• 3:48
  No, it was the hospital fault. And the hospital says no, it was
• 3:52
  the manufacturer's fault. So in this case, the only
• 3:55
  defendant was Yale, and it was pretty clear.
• 3:57
  The mother was clear. Only give my to the child.
• 4:00
  They didn't follow the instructions and they didn't
• 4:03
  warn. That's why the big verdict came
• 4:04
  down. But again, this is good news for
• 4:07
  the plaintiffs. Get us some momentum building
• 4:09
  for 2026 after we had a couple of defense.
• 4:12
  Verdicts. Another case type that affects
• 4:15
  young children, Toxic baby food. We had a full week Daubert
• 4:18
  hearing just wrapped up in the MDL.
• 4:20
  Was there any indication of how the judge might rule on the
• 4:24
  issues that are still outstanding in this case, or
• 4:26
  what what happens next? Yeah, it was really interesting.
• 4:29
  In this case case right before the MDL Daalbert hearings came
• 4:33
  down, we got the ruling from the California State court excluding
• 4:37
  the plaintiffs expert. So that information, that ruling
• 4:39
  was actually helpful for us because we were able to identify
• 4:43
  some potential holes or at least what the court saw.
• 4:46
  It was holes in the expert testimony and kind of beefed
• 4:49
  that up during the presentation. So overall, it went pretty well
• 4:53
  for the plaintiffs. What I'm predicting is a couple
• 4:56
  of our experts will survive. I don't think the full stable is
• 4:59
  going to get and they're going to be some kicked out.
• 5:02
  But as long as we can get two or three over the finish line
• 5:05
  there, that's going to really open up this litigation.
• 5:08
  We should have a ruling in the beginning of 26 before the end
• 5:12
  of the first quarter and then this is going to be an MDL with
• 5:15
  a lot of cases. Supposedly we're going to get
• 5:17
  above that 10,000 number threshold.
• 5:20
  We heard from the Judicial panel of the Multi District
• 5:23
  litigation. Following the last hearing of
• 5:25
  the year, 3 important cases were decided.
• 5:27
  Weight loss, Vision loss, faces, video game addiction and Roblox
• 5:32
  sex abuse. How did the panel come down in
• 5:35
  these cases? Really interesting docket like
• 5:38
  you mentioned there, Mark, we had three masked torts in front
• 5:40
  of the panel, which is a little bit higher than we typically
• 5:43
  see. The first case you mentioned was
• 5:45
  the vision loss arising from the weight loss medication.
• 5:48
  The panel decided to form an MDL for this in the Eastern District
• 5:53
  of Pennsylvania. But what they did was they kept
• 5:55
  her two separate dockets. So we're in front of the same
• 5:58
  MDL judge, but we have the litigation ongoing for the
• 6:01
  vision loss cases and then those gastric injuries are going to
• 6:05
  continue on their own track. Same thing like we saw in New
• 6:08
  Jersey. We had a set back because we
• 6:10
  were hoping to get a MDL form for the video game addiction.
• 6:13
  This is the second time the panels rejected this request.
• 6:17
  This was a streamline request focusing in on less defendants
• 6:21
  and less games. The panel rejected.
• 6:23
  It looks like that litigation is going to really be focused in
• 6:26
  California State court. That's where all the action is
• 6:28
  going to be in 26 and beyond. Then we got some good news
• 6:31
  coming out of the panel. They granted the MDL for this
• 6:34
  robot sex abuse cases. Basically, we're going to have
• 6:38
  it docket there. We'll watch and see how many
• 6:40
  cases end up filing, but it's going to be centralized in the
• 6:44
  Northern District of California just like the plaintiffs want
• 6:47
  it. It's a really friendly venue for
• 6:49
  us. Some really good judges out
• 6:50
  there. So we ended up getting two out
• 6:52
  of three. We'll take that any day the
• 6:55
  week. The panel saw that these cases
• 6:57
  would benefit from consolidation, so that that's
• 7:00
  good for the plaintiffs here, build some momentum going into
• 7:02
  next year. Yeah, there's a lot of news as
• 7:05
  we head into the end of 2025. So many updates happening on the
• 7:09
  case types that you spoke about. We have bellwethers coming up in
• 7:12
  a number of cases in early 2026. I'm really looking forward to
• 7:15
  what's going to happen in these AI trials, the social media
• 7:18
  addiction trials that are coming up.
• 7:20
  A lot of news. I recommend.
• 7:22
  Subscribe to our channel, get the latest updates when they
• 7:25
  happen. You can catch us on YouTube,
• 7:27
  Apple Podcast, we're on Instagram, we're on, we're on
• 7:30
  Spotify. We will be in person at the NTL
• 7:34
  Summit in Miami at the end of January.
• 7:36
  So Joe will be there. Mark and myself will be there as
• 7:39
  well. We look forward to seeing you
• 7:40
  there. A very, very happy new year.
• 7:43
  Happy holidays to everyone, and thank you so much for a great
• 7:46
  2025. Joe, Happy holidays.
• 7:48
  Thanks for joining us. We'll see you in the new year.
• 7:50
  Thanks guys. Happy holidays.
• 7:52
  See you in Miami. See you in 2026.