Latest / The Jon and Marc Podcast / Roblox, Olympus, and Social Media: The Most Anticipated Trials of 2026
Transcript
- 0:00Welcome to Tor TALK LIVE. It is John, Mark and Joe
- 0:03Fantini. We have a lot to get into.
- 0:06We are live at Mass Torts Made Perfect.
- 0:08In the win. We have a very special episode
- 0:10to bring to you. Joe is a man of the people.
- 0:12He hears all the whispers going around and we get the inside
- 0:15scoop. What everyone's talking about.
- 0:17Live here today at Mass Torts Made Perfect.
- 0:19Joe, what are you hearing? Yeah.
- 0:21Thanks for having me, guys. Excited to be with you back in
- 0:23Vegas. I'm excited not to be in a bed
- 0:26with you. I'm, I disagree, I would rather
- 0:29be doing this in bed, but I was outvoted in this scenario.
- 0:31So before we get into the podcast, just a quick heads up.
- 0:35This is the fifth year of mass towards Puerto Rico.
- 0:38And if there was ever a year to be there, it's this one.
- 0:42Bigger, bolder and more powerful.
- 0:44John and I will be in San Juan recording episodes of the John
- 0:47and Mark podcast as the official podcast sponsor.
- 0:51So come see us and say hi at the Condado Vanderbilt May 5th
- 0:56through 7th. 5 years of momentum is cool.
- 0:58Being there for milestones is cooler.
- 1:01Register and get more details at Mass towards puertorico.com.
- 1:05For now, let's get back to the episode.
- 1:07So here we are, maybe everybody follow along till the October
- 1:11version and we'll see what happens.
- 1:12But yeah, down on the streets everybody has I'd say a renew
- 1:17and refreshed energy is kind of going on.
- 1:19We're, we're seeing a lot of new torts out there that are people
- 1:23starting to get involved with. I think part of that's the flow
- 1:26of capital coming into the market.
- 1:28So we had, you know, the private equity era, which might be done
- 1:33and tighten up a little bit, but a lot of people who had money
- 1:36tied up in years from hernia mesh or even Zantac, CPAP all
- 1:41getting payments. So now that's being reinvested
- 1:45in some of these new cases, and that's what I think a lot of
- 1:47people are excited about so far. What are the new cases?
- 1:52Yeah. So the new ones we've talked
- 1:53about a little bit, but we have Dupixent, we had the Olympic
- 1:57scopes, we have the social media, the video game.
- 2:01Those are probably the ones that people are talking about the
- 2:04most. And then a little bit more
- 2:06mature is Depo Provera. So we got that one on the rocket
- 2:09docket, but there's still time to get involved with that.
- 2:12So a year ago, none of those five were really on anybody's
- 2:16radar, and that's what everybody's kind of getting
- 2:19involved with now. Yeah, I would say a year ago the
- 2:22mood was very somber. There wasn't a lot of new things
- 2:25popping up. A lot of people, like you said,
- 2:26had money tied up, no energy, no momentum really.
- 2:30But there's definitely some buzz going around.
- 2:31I can. I can feel the energy is a lot
- 2:33higher right now. Yeah, it's, it's more exciting,
- 2:36more positive, like you're saying.
- 2:37And you know, we had some huge verdicts and huge wins.
- 2:41So that always helps, right? Social media, The NEC trial.
- 2:45There's the opioid settlement that just happened to.
- 2:48Yeah, that was a big one for a lot of people, 750 million.
- 2:52And then hopefully we're going to maybe be able to break this
- 2:55stalemate in talc, which is the longest running 1 supposed to be
- 2:59trying to get some of these bellwether trials scheduled.
- 3:02So I think hope might be the, you know, theme of this one and
- 3:07there's some good opportunities to get involved.
- 3:09So if you guys want to get into each one of those, we can kind
- 3:13of talk a little bit about the lay of the land and what
- 3:15everybody sees with those. I definitely want to talk about
- 3:18those, but also I think right now there's the Roblox session
- 3:22or coming up very shortly is the Roblox session.
- 3:24And prior to the start of MTMP there was a meeting in New
- 3:27Orleans. So you know what happened there.
- 3:30No, I I don't know what happened.
- 3:32There, I don't have the full details on it, but I know that
- 3:34it has brought some additional concerns into the to the
- 3:37litigation also open some things up.
- 3:40I think the CEO was there or there was just discussions with
- 3:44the CEO, but I don't think through a game of telephone
- 3:46because I wasn't there. I, I think what it sounds like
- 3:49is it's going to be a longer battle than people had thought.
- 3:51And and I could see that, right? And you know, going into these
- 3:55cases, we always think it's going to be quick, easy money.
- 3:57But these huge companies, they have unlimited resources and a
- 4:01tactic we've seen deploying now is not only stretch out the
- 4:04litigation, stretch out the payment, right Roundup.
- 4:07They're talking about 20 years for payment.
- 4:09People are. Going to be dead before they see
- 4:11that money. Yeah, we, we saw it in the three
- 4:13on ear plug. They're they're paying over 10
- 4:15years on some of the cases. So that's part of it.
- 4:18But Roblox definitely is implementing changes we saw
- 4:22they're going to be implementing.
- 4:24They announced that this week or last week.
- 4:26A couple days ago. Requirements for the age
- 4:28verification maybe under 8 or 9 and then 9 to 15.
- 4:33So what they're doing really there is limiting the liability
- 4:37for future cases, right? So they're not doing that to
- 4:40settle these cases today. They're doing it to shut off
- 4:43these future cases. So what we said they did wrong,
- 4:46so they're correcting each one of those mistakes in these
- 4:49updates, which shows obviously they could have done it and
- 4:52should have done it years ago. But now it's it's like a product
- 4:55manufacturer has the new product on the market and that's what
- 4:59they're doing. So they'll know OK, after we get
- 5:01through this wave of cases, we're not going to run into
- 5:03these similar problems. So it's going to be a long
- 5:06fight. I don't see that docket
- 5:08exploding into 10,000 or so. I think, you know, maybe a
- 5:12couple thousand we'll end up with.
- 5:14What was very interesting about Roblox, we learned because we
- 5:16sat with Jess Herman from Simply Convert and Tor Herman Law, and
- 5:22they had developed a, a way to actually pull someone's activity
- 5:27history from Roblox based on the username.
- 5:30And she showed us after we got done filming that episode, Like
- 5:33the detail that they're able to grab on the front end when
- 5:36someone signs up the claim. It's super interesting.
- 5:38Like now that you're dealing with platforms versus having to
- 5:41go get someone's medical. Records you're pulling in via
- 5:44their login you're scraping or using an API that exists to get
- 5:47all the data you need for the litigation.
- 5:49They could tell what experiences they were in, they could tell
- 5:51like how long they were there. They could tell who they
- 5:53interacted with. No, Granted, like Roblox is
- 5:55going to say, a lot of those like the the sexual assault
- 5:59allegations happened on other platforms.
- 6:01They moved to Discord or they moved to Snapchat.
- 6:03But still you have a lot more data points than you would have
- 6:07in other types of litigations. Yeah, and we see that too and
- 6:11video game addiction and the social media addiction that that
- 6:14footprints there, you know, and we can get it as opposed to
- 6:17having like you said, send out the request for the records to
- 6:20get it. We can get that kind upfront.
- 6:22So I I think roadblocks, there's some excitement.
- 6:26I think that might be more of a kind of sophisticated mess
- 6:30toward that's not going to be a case somebody's going to come in
- 6:33and get 10 or 20. That's going to be really run by
- 6:37the firms that know how to handle those tougher cases.
- 6:41It's a good case if you can get it, but I wouldn't recommend
- 6:45everybody listening to us right now to jump into Roblox.
- 6:48It's it's a harder, more complex case than the typical medical
- 6:52device. Ozempic, Depo, Provera, those
- 6:55are cookie cutter almost compared to that.
- 6:57So out of the ones that that you mentioned previously, which of
- 7:01those are you most excited about and why?
- 7:04Yeah, I think, right. Social media addiction, right?
- 7:07We, we had the great verdict and they're making changes to the
- 7:11platform. That's the one most people are
- 7:14excited about. And I think there's 10,000 cases
- 7:17there. There easily could be 100,000
- 7:20cases out there. So the numerosity is their
- 7:24framework for trial is there, there's more trial scheduled.
- 7:28So that's the number one. Still everybody's most excited
- 7:31about it. The ones I mentioned that I
- 7:34think on the other end of the spectrum is that Dupixent case,
- 7:37right? We've talked about it before,
- 7:39good case, good signs, but like how many cases are there really
- 7:43going to be? You know, could we get 1002
- 7:46thousand cases maybe, but we're not going to get over that
- 7:4910,000 threshold or 50,000 like Tau or 100,000 like Roundup.
- 7:55So I would say social media addiction, it's a little bit
- 7:59more mature. And then the brand new one, I
- 8:02know you've spoke to some people about the Olympus one, right?
- 8:05The, the new morosity is there. The science is going to be
- 8:09there. It's a big defendant.
- 8:10So I, I think that's another one people are trying to get
- 8:13involved with. There was a good session here
- 8:16earlier today about that. If anyone's interested in
- 8:18learning more about that, watch our full episode where we sat
- 8:20down with Kelsey Stokes. We went through the entire
- 8:23litigation. What they've learned already
- 8:24from the experts. What Olympus has or has not done
- 8:28to try and stave off these cases.
- 8:30But yeah, you're you're, you are very correct here The, the
- 8:33numerosity absolutely is there. She said 85 to 90% of the market
- 8:38share is Olympus. So effectively anyone who had an
- 8:40endoscopy, A colonoscopy because.
- 8:42Usually the Achilles heel for the product like litigations and
- 8:46is that no one knows what's inside them.
- 8:48They could have been. There's a wide use of an ankle
- 8:50implant or a mesh. It's hard to figure out which
- 8:52one they had because no one freaking knows until after you
- 8:55pull medical records. But yeah, now there's an 85 to
- 8:5890% chance. Yeah, and it's similar kind of
- 9:01idea with Bear Hugger, which is flying under the radar.
- 9:05But when you have a manufacturer like 3 M who dominates the
- 9:08market and has 8590%, you know, going into it, you have that
- 9:12upper hand. It's almost like being able to
- 9:14go in and pour the data, you know, from the roadblocks or
- 9:19from the video game addiction platforms to have that first
- 9:22level of proof, you know, before you go and invest in the case.
- 9:25So that's one that's going to be around a lot.
- 9:29We don't have the JPML yet. I know the Dupixent ones
- 9:32pending. I think there's about 2530 cases
- 9:36filed in the whole country right now.
- 9:38So that that will probably get granted.
- 9:40But like I said, I don't think everybody here is going to get
- 9:45in on that case. But anybody who has roundup
- 9:47cases, go through your roundup cases, right?
- 9:50That type of NHL T cell, that's a subtype that you're going to
- 9:55have clients in there. So that's a good resource to
- 9:58mine your data, find those clients, see if they use
- 10:01Dupixent, If you have a decent roundup inventory, you'll come
- 10:05across, come with them. But going out marketing on your
- 10:07own to get those, it's going to be a little bit more
- 10:10challenging. You've leaned into working with
- 10:13Pi attorneys and helping them identify cases that are just
- 10:16sitting there from their existing docket.
- 10:18That is one I think that is a good one for them to start
- 10:20looking at doing that with. That's something I noticed here
- 10:22too, right. So instead of at the conference,
- 10:25the private equity money, I think we're seeing kind of that
- 10:29rebirth that the Pi firms trying to get involved in mass stores
- 10:33and trying to learn. So that was something I noticed
- 10:35a little bit different on the floor and some people mentioned
- 10:38it. It was new faces, right?
- 10:41We, we've been going to these conferences for a while.
- 10:43We've seen the people time and time and time again.
- 10:46But here there's kind of the influx of that single event Pi
- 10:49firms and there's a lot of cases they're just sitting on.
- 10:52They're sitting on Olympus cases, they're sitting on
- 10:54Dupixent cases, they're sitting on social media addiction cases,
- 10:58like they're just sitting right there.
- 11:00They just need to know what to look for.
- 11:01But they have that relationship with the existing client base
- 11:05who know, like and trust them. They can send out an e-mail
- 11:07blast. They can get those cases pretty
- 11:10easily and get involved. I was hanging out and walking
- 11:13through the casino with the person who's been in the
- 11:15industry for a really long time. I'm going to leave them out for
- 11:18for their sake, but they're like, this is the one of the
- 11:21first times I've seen so many new faces.
- 11:23They're like usually I just run in to talk to the same old
- 11:25people every time. He's like, this is a lot of new
- 11:27faces here that I don't recognize.
- 11:29I think that could be a good thing, right?
- 11:30We've seen some change in the the marketing space and the
- 11:34lending space and some of the bad alpha was maybe are no
- 11:39longer around. You know, some of the people who
- 11:41are doing maybe bad things or didn't have the best product or
- 11:45the best service, they're no longer around.
- 11:47So I think the people who are here, kind of the foundational
- 11:50players are really solid, and that's why it's beneficial when
- 11:55we get these new people coming in.
- 11:56It's kind of all good actors working together, but they
- 12:00brought some good new energy to the conference.
- 12:03Yeah, for all those cases that you spoke about, for anyone who
- 12:07is interested in getting into any of those litigations, wants
- 12:09to know how to go about mining their data, sending those
- 12:12emails, definitely reach out to Joe.
- 12:14He just touched like the little tip of the iceberg on on what he
- 12:17can help you with. But I'm sure, Joe, you're happy
- 12:19to talk to anyone who wants to reach out to you, right?
- 12:21Yeah, just reach out to me, happy to go over it, share, you
- 12:24know, case criteria, what we're doing to get the information on
- 12:28these people. But there's a lot of clients out
- 12:31there that need help and these firms that are just getting
- 12:33involved, like that's an easy way to get involved instead of,
- 12:36you know, maybe go and spending 100,200 thousand.
- 12:40I know that could be a little risky or overwhelming.
- 12:43The cases that people are acquiring now at scale, we did
- 12:47have a big shift. We started talking about this
- 12:49right before we went live. The social media addiction
- 12:52cases, we had that that announcement that I believe was
- 12:56Axiom that broke the news. And Meta actually made a public
- 13:00comment, right? They said that we're not going
- 13:02to allow lawyers to target users to try and acquire new cases
- 13:07against Meta through the platform.
- 13:09And you said that people were talking about that downstairs.
- 13:11Yeah, definitely. People have gotten banned,
- 13:13right, their accounts on Facebook and that's very
- 13:16concerning. But people were saying that what
- 13:18they've seen is maybe targeting other platforms on Meta.
- 13:21So if you're on there maybe targeting people who had
- 13:25problems with snap or TikTok and then being able to acquire them
- 13:29and sign them up and maybe some of those people crossover and
- 13:33then fit that demographic. So you know, when you're signing
- 13:35somebody up for Roblox, do run them through the criteria for
- 13:39video game addiction, run them through the criteria for social
- 13:42media addiction. It's kind of that cross
- 13:45pollination and and you'll be able to get some clients.
- 13:48So that was a move. I think Mark, you said you saw
- 13:51it coming five years ago. Took them a little bit longer to
- 13:55get there. I'm sure they've made hundreds
- 13:57of millions of dollars off of the attorneys marketing.
- 14:00Yep. So they're not that upset about
- 14:02it, but we probably saw it coming.
- 14:04You, you were the first one I think I saw mention it.
- 14:07Everybody's not surprised, but there's other ways and that's
- 14:10why it's so important to have other channels to get cases
- 14:13right. You got to get them from
- 14:14referrals. Existing clients like that costs
- 14:16nothing. Meta, you got to do videos, you
- 14:19got to be on SEO there. There's a lot of different
- 14:22channels out there because if one gets shut off you, you could
- 14:26be in trouble if you're depending upon it 100%.
- 14:29Yeah, that definitely being channel agnostic in your
- 14:32approach and not working, you know, only in one single lane
- 14:35and hoping that that works forever because you can see
- 14:38Facebook can shut off that's the faucet anytime that they want.
- 14:41We do have an actual trial going on right now.
- 14:44I think it's the the third Uber bellwether they just finished.
- 14:48Is it a defense pick or plaintiff pick?
- 14:51I think this is a defense pick. They they just did jury
- 14:54selection. They literally just started.
- 14:56So in in North Carolina, we've gotten some favorable ruling so
- 14:59far about the common carrier in addition to this trial there.
- 15:03There's been indications in some of the court filings that other
- 15:06cases are being settled outside of the bellwether picks.
- 15:10So we're not talking about firm inventory and we're not talking
- 15:13about global yet. But in some of the court
- 15:16filings, if you pay attention, you see that there have been
- 15:19settlements and some of these maybe upcoming bellwether cases.
- 15:23So Ubers positioning changed totally from fight, fight,
- 15:27fight, fight. Then we got the first verdict.
- 15:30And if we can get a second one here, I mean, that's going to
- 15:33have great impact. And just remember, it's not just
- 15:36Uber there, there's off of the lift litigation that's coming up
- 15:39too. Same players from the plaintiff
- 15:42side. We have the road map for that.
- 15:45So if we can get a good verdict in this Uber second, well, third
- 15:48trial 2 for US1 for Uber, that will go a long way.
- 15:52And then I think that the next trial is at the next week, I
- 15:56guess the, the power port 1 is going to be kicking off.
- 16:00So a lot of people said about that.
- 16:03There's about a little over 3000 ish cases filed there.
- 16:08Just from an attorney's perspective, people might have
- 16:10been a little squeamish of that case because we, we didn't have
- 16:15like the best result previously in IVC filters, which was barred
- 16:20big defendant similar type theory.
- 16:22So if we could win that one, that would go a long way.
- 16:25But we'll we'll see how it turns out.
- 16:27I, I think some of the rulings have been positive.
- 16:30I know good trial team, good attorneys, but it's going to
- 16:34come down to what the jury says. And even if we win it, you know,
- 16:37there's 3000 cases. Could we double it to 6000?
- 16:41But I don't see it going to that 10,000 threshold, do you?
- 16:44I think it depends on like the, the injuries that wind up, you
- 16:47know, being the, the ones that really wind up being targeted.
- 16:50Like you talked about the comparisons to IVC, like I, I
- 16:53understand obviously it's like a, it's an intravenous device,
- 16:57but it's much more complex than a standard IVC filter, right,
- 17:00where it just breaks. You're talking about things that
- 17:01can like completely move and they're much bigger than a
- 17:04standard IVC filter. So I've liked that case from the
- 17:07beginning. I thought the science was good
- 17:09and like you said, great team behind it.
- 17:10Rebecca Phillips. Yeah, fantastic.
- 17:13So I was saying, yeah, it's like Bard, same defendant, we're in
- 17:17the same court, the same kind of theories overall.
- 17:20So, so we knew the law of the land a little bit.
- 17:22The science is probably a little bit better, but we see these
- 17:25cases time and time again. Another example is Mirena IUD,
- 17:29which we did 810 years ago now it's the Paragard IUD.
- 17:34So it's kind of akin to that. These things come around and
- 17:37what's good for the plaintiffs is, you know, we can learn and
- 17:40we're constantly learning on what may be mistakes we made
- 17:44during the litigation or how to really get that pertinent
- 17:47information. So that's the process for the
- 17:49plaintiffs. It's just kind of keep trying,
- 17:52keep pushing them forward, but everybody's excited about the
- 17:55trial dates, should get some good verdicts there.
- 17:59And with some of these legacy towards maybe wrapping up, it's
- 18:03this kind of era of hope and this new energy coming into the
- 18:06space was I think will be good for everybody.
- 18:08I also saw this past week, I'm sitting at home and I'm watching
- 18:12TV and I saw what initially appeared to be an ad for Roundup
- 18:16and it wasn't an ad, an attorney ad.
- 18:18What it was was the court that was advertising the website
- 18:22based on the proposed settlement.
- 18:24It looked just like you know the the relatively low budget right
- 18:29stock footage you. Guys know what those commercials
- 18:31look like? I went to the website and you
- 18:34get there and it's not even all set up yet.
- 18:36It's like a holding site. And I don't know if they're
- 18:38testing to see like the effectiveness of the ads that
- 18:40they're running. But anyone who's still acquiring
- 18:43Roundup cases, like they need to be aware that, you know, that
- 18:46they are now not only competing with other attorneys looking for
- 18:48those cases and they're competing with the court that's
- 18:50trying to get people to go directly into the settlement.
- 18:53Right. Yeah.
- 18:53So maybe not exactly the the court advertisement it would be,
- 18:59I think it's on behalf of the proposed class action or
- 19:03something is the fine line at the bottom.
- 19:05So that's likely paid for by the the firms and leadership on the
- 19:09plaintiff side who filed the defense attorneys as well, kind
- 19:13of like a joint effort there. So I've seen those commercials.
- 19:18I'm hearing a lot of radio advertisements.
- 19:20Actually. I don't know if you heard any of
- 19:21those. I got to listen to the radio
- 19:23first before I hear radio. Advertisements about about the
- 19:26settlement so in Philadelphia it's it's huge on the radio top
- 19:30dogs everywhere. James does a great job.
- 19:32He he raps and sings for us. But these other.
- 19:35Former guest on the John Mark podcast.
- 19:37Great episodes. You'd watch it.
- 19:38Yeah, James James is a good guy, amazing with marketing, that's
- 19:41for sure. But I usually hear his
- 19:44commercials, but they they started playing the roundup
- 19:46settlement commercials. So the opt out deadlines October
- 19:504th. So if anybody's got any cases,
- 19:52you want to opt out, need a wet signature by October 4th.
- 19:56And there's a process on the website to upload it.
- 19:59We have the hearing coming up, the oral argument.
- 20:02I think it's April 27th in the roundup in the Supreme Court.
- 20:07There's a lot happening there. People are still getting cases.
- 20:11I don't know if that's the best investment right now, but there
- 20:14there's cases out there. I'm still getting a bunch of
- 20:16them. As you get towards the end of
- 20:18any of these litigations, like yes, they're going to be more
- 20:20competitive to acquire. Yes, they're going to be more
- 20:22expensive, but if you get one, the path is much clearer.
- 20:25Yeah. And the timeline to payment is
- 20:27less so you know a lot always going on in mass torts, but we
- 20:32are in kind of the upswing. So I think it's got a good
- 20:36energy out there. So I, I think it's been a good
- 20:39conference overall. Some positive feedback.
- 20:41We've been stopped by multiple people that love our Tor Talk
- 20:44segment who listen to it every week for the updates.
- 20:47They had questions about the power rankings.
- 20:49They had questions about individual episodes.
- 20:52They like that it's a nice tight 10 minutes, the best 10 minutes
- 20:56in all of mass torts every week to get the updates.
- 20:59A lot of people, a lot of positive feedback, Joe.
- 21:01Good. Well, I'm glad to do this with
- 21:03you guys. People do love the tour talks.
- 21:06Everybody talks to me about it. So it's good to share what what
- 21:10we're saying. And we got a unique perspective
- 21:13from me handling the cases and you guys kind of doing the
- 21:15marketing, seeing what people are into.
- 21:18It's a good blend to give people this honest advice because
- 21:22there's plenty of cases out there.
- 21:24There's plenty of people to help.
- 21:25So we're happy to steer them in the right direction.
- 21:27I think we need to get you a nickname soon like Joe the
- 21:30Oracle Fantamy. Joe does law.
- 21:33Joe does law, yes. We'll see.
- 21:34We'll work. We'll work on something.
- 21:36So no, no pillow talk, but Randy wanted to do another gimmick.
- 21:41So here he comes with I. Might have to put you into
- 21:45custody for that. One we tried to find tortellini.
- 21:50Thank you. And instead Randy shows up with,
- 21:54by the way, before you open your box before we went live, Randy
- 21:58handed tried to hand this to us and he dropped one of the boxes
- 22:01on the floor. So I'm going to see who actually
- 22:03got the box with the upside down tort.
- 22:05Is it me? Mine's gorgeous.
- 22:08Mine looks good too. Yep, and mine does not, so I'll
- 22:15just have a strawberry. But happy MTNP.
- 22:18Thanks for watching another episode of Tort Talk, Joe Safe
- 22:21travels back to Philly and we will see everybody at mass
- 22:24towards Puerto Rico in a couple weeks.
- 22:25Yep, we'll be there live again.