Latest / The Jon and Marc Podcast / Social Media Trial Greenlit, Roblox MDL Looms

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Social Media Trial Greenlit, Roblox MDL Looms · The Jon and Marc Podcast

• 0:09
  Welcome back to this week's episode of Torque Talks.
• 0:12
  Thank you. We have John and Joe with me
• 0:15
  today. I am back from vacation.
• 0:16
  We have an action-packed week, gentlemen.
• 0:18
  Let's get into it. So social media addiction, last
• 0:21
  week you all discussed the first upcoming trial in November in
• 0:25
  Los Angeles County Superior Court.
• 0:27
  An important decision came about admissibility of plaintiffs
• 0:30
  experts. What can you tell us about this
• 0:32
  ruling? Yeah, Mark, like you mentioned,
• 0:35
  we have a lot of momentum going in the social media addiction
• 0:38
  cases. We got the good news that the
• 0:40
  first bellwether case is going to move forward in November.
• 0:44
  We got some really good news like you just mentioned
• 0:47
  regarding the miscibility of plaintiffs, experts.
• 0:50
  So in this case, the judge evaluated all of our experts,
• 0:54
  the defendants challenge every single one.
• 0:56
  And the issue before the court was whether or not the expert
• 1:00
  which rely upon reliable methodology when reaching their
• 1:04
  opinion. So as we see in each case, the
• 1:07
  defendants attacked each one of our experts.
• 1:09
  The judge ultimately ruled in our favor and only excluded one
• 1:13
  of our experts, but all the others got in.
• 1:16
  So what this means is when we get to trial, we're going to be
• 1:19
  able to present the fact evidence, but also have the
• 1:22
  expert testimony come in behind it to help explain to the jury
• 1:27
  about the techniques and the things that the defendants did,
• 1:30
  the big tech companies did that led to the addiction of our
• 1:34
  clients. So a huge ruling if we had
• 1:37
  losses rolling and potentially could have set back the entire
• 1:40
  litigation and we would have been back at square 1.
• 1:43
  So we're all really excited about this development.
• 1:45
  That's excellent news. Yeah, very similar to social
• 1:48
  media. Roblox serves social media
• 1:51
  platform for kids. There's an NDL being sought
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  there and we're we're hearing real horror stories about kids
• 1:56
  using Roblox and various issues that they're having throughout
• 2:00
  the country. A petition seeking consolidation
• 2:02
  was filed with the JPML seeking to form an MDL.
• 2:06
  What should we expect next related to this motion as it
• 2:08
  heats up? Yeah, like you said John, this
• 2:11
  is a similar case to what we're seeing in the social media
• 2:14
  addiction, the video game addiction cases.
• 2:17
  Roadblocks is an online gaming platform and what we just saw
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  was in September a couple firms filed a petition for
• 2:24
  consolidation in front of the judicial panel, multi district
• 2:28
  litigation. So for those who might not be as
• 2:30
  experienced as you with mass torts, in order for an MDL to be
• 2:34
  formed, usually the plaintiffs filed this petition saying that
• 2:38
  there's a large number of cases, usually above 25 cases that
• 2:42
  involve similar defendants, similar facts and similar
• 2:45
  injuries. And for the sake of judicial
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  economy, the cases should be in front of 1 judge who's going to
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  give us consistent rulings. So we just saw that motion
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  filed. What happened is there's over 30
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  cases that are pending throughout the country.
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  About half of the cases right now are pending in the Northern
• 3:02
  District of California, said the petition sought consolidation in
• 3:07
  front of a judge in the Northern District of California.
• 3:09
  What we're going to see next is the defendant's response.
• 3:12
  I anticipate they're going to say that there shouldn't be an
• 3:15
  MDL form because it involves different facts, mainly the
• 3:19
  length of time that the users were using the platform and the
• 3:22
  injuries they suffered. And then in addition to that,
• 3:26
  the defendants taping in the Northern District of California.
• 3:29
  So they'll probably pose another jurisdiction.
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  I'd expect it to be somewhere in New York, ultimately wind up
• 3:35
  having a hearing at the last JPML hearing in December.
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  I expect there to be an MDL forum before the end of 25.
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  This is a really important case with really important issues.
• 3:46
  So we'll stay on top of it here over the next couple months.
• 3:49
  Yeah, this is an exciting one to watch.
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  See from the beginning this also another one that affects
• 3:53
  children. So very interesting to see how
• 3:55
  this unfolds. Is this the?
• 3:57
  Is this Roblox from a video game addiction standpoint?
• 4:00
  Is this Roblox from like the sexual assault of minors
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  standpoint? Yeah, the the latter one there,
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  John. The video game addiction
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  continues to proceed down its own path and then this Roblox
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  minor sexual assault cases are seeking consolidation.
• 4:13
  Got it. Thank you.
• 4:15
  NEC Last time we talked about this lawsuit, we were discussing
• 4:18
  the summary judgment win for defendants in the MDL.
• 4:21
  What is happening now with the census order entered by the MDL
• 4:24
  judge? Like you said, we had a set back
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  this summer where the judge granted summary judgment on
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  defendants motion knocking out the next bellwether case.
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  We have a similar argument coming up in October, I believe
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  it's October 14th, where summary judgment motions being argued
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  and another bellwether case. Meanwhile, while that's all
• 4:44
  going on, a positive development I'll say is that the judge
• 4:48
  ordered a census. So basically this is a
• 4:51
  questionnaire that needs to be completed.
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  Usually once the litigation is ongoing, we refer to this form
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  as a plaintiff profile form. The judge in this litigation is
• 5:01
  requiring that the census form be completed for all filed and
• 5:05
  unfiled cases, basically giving the parties 90 days to get this
• 5:09
  completed. It seems like the judge is
• 5:11
  trying to get their arms around the total inventory, so there's
• 5:14
  not that shot like we saw in a triple F where 10s of thousands
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  of cases ended up being filed. For me, this points to the judge
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  wanting to have a clear indication of the total number
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  of cases to help streamline and really allow the parties to move
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  forward with settlement discussions.
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  Without this information, it's really impossible for the
• 5:33
  parties to have substantive discussions.
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  So I think this is a positive development.
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  Usually when there's some sort of census or requirement from
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  the court to get information, the really have an eye on
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  settlement, even though I think that's down the line in these
• 5:47
  cases because like I said, the defendants definitely have some
• 5:50
  momentum on their side with the summary judgement wins.
• 5:53
  It's good. It's great to see that that
• 5:55
  another case, this time NEC just making progress after being
• 5:59
  stalled for a little while. Moving on to our next case type,
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  we're going to talk about Roundup.
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  We're still waiting on the Solicitor general to provide a
• 6:06
  response and whether the Supreme Court should consider bears
• 6:09
  preemption argument. What is happening with this
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  litigation? Right, John, we're, we're
• 6:13
  waiting for the Solicitor General to come in.
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  As you remember before, under the Biden administration, the
• 6:19
  solicitor general said that they didn't believe that the case
• 6:22
  should be taken up to the Supreme Court and ultimately the
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  Supreme Court declined to hear it.
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  We're waiting to see if the solicitor General under the
• 6:31
  current administration changes the recommendation.
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  But while that's going on, we still have 10s of thousands of
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  cases pending throughout the country, mainly focused in
• 6:41
  Missouri State court. What we're seeing there is that
• 6:44
  it appears cases are being settled 1 by 1.
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  So cases comes up for a trial. Instead of moving forward with
• 6:50
  the trial, the case disappears off of the docket.
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  It appears that their individual case settlements ongoing, which
• 6:57
  is Bear strategy now to allow for the Supreme Court petition
• 7:01
  to pay out. While that's all ongoing, we
• 7:04
  recently saw unrelated to the personal injury cases, a class
• 7:08
  action settlement involving investors in BEAR.
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  They in essence claim that they didn't reveal initially the true
• 7:15
  potential liabilities that Monsanto Bear faced when Bear
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  purchased the company. The settlement was for about $38
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  million. I think it's significant here
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  because it just shows another Ave. that bears trying to clear
• 7:29
  its books. Get past this Roundup
• 7:31
  litigation. Wow, that is some interesting
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  Intel I did. Not know that one.
• 7:36
  Yeah, did not hear about. That one.
• 7:38
  That's why you guys have me here.
• 7:41
  So Tylenol mass tort. So the oral argument was
• 7:44
  postponed. What's going on there?
• 7:46
  I know there's been a ton of news about Tylenol coming down
• 7:49
  from the FDA and the president. What's new here?
• 7:51
  Yeah, like we talked about last week, John Tylenol's in the news
• 7:55
  everywhere, even outside mass torts.
• 7:57
  We were waiting for a long time to have the oral argument before
• 8:00
  the 2nd Circuit about whether or not the judge in the federal
• 8:04
  court case in our MDL overstepped the boundaries in
• 8:07
  excluding plaintiffs experts. There was a lot of momentum
• 8:10
  building toward that argument, which was going to be the first
• 8:12
  week in October. Ultimately because of these
• 8:15
  recent developments. And like you mentioned, Mark,
• 8:18
  the FDA coming out, the judge in the Second Circuit decided to
• 8:21
  postpone the arguments to the middle of November to kind of
• 8:25
  let the dust settle a little bit in each party, provide
• 8:28
  information on how this decision and the FDA's input if it
• 8:32
  impacts it at all. To me this this signals that
• 8:35
  it's a good sign for plaintiffs. Delaying this a little bit
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  further I think makes sense for both parties, but I think it
• 8:40
  ultimately is going to end up on our side being a win and I'm
• 8:44
  really hoping we can get that decision overturned and these
• 8:47
  cases back in the beginning of 26.
• 8:50
  So yeah, another exciting week in Mass Tours on Tor Talks once
• 8:53
  again, the most valuable 10 minutes in mass tort you can
• 8:55
  have every week. Joe, thanks for being here.
• 8:58
  Next week I think we're going to start doing our new series and
• 9:01
  we're going to start doing some power rankings.
• 9:03
  Yeah. Thanks for having me, guys.
• 9:04
  Looking forward to the power rankings coming out next month.