Susan Barfield (00:06):
Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of Tort Talk Thursday here as always with Joe Fantini of Rosen Injury Lawyers. Joe, thanks so much for spending time with us, and it was so great to see you last weekend in Vegas at MTMP.
Joe Fantini (00:18):
Thanks for having me, Susan. Always loved speaking with you and it was a pleasure seeing you last week at Mass Tort Made. Perfect. I always love catching up with you in person.
Susan Barfield (00:26):
Yeah. Well, speaking of MTMP, why don’t you share some of the takeaways or the highlights that you have as it relates to the conference?
Joe Fantini (00:34):
Yeah. Three main takeaways I had from the conference here. Number one, it seemed like it was a little less attended than previous years. I know in prior years we had more than 2000 attendees. This year, it’s felt a little smaller, a little bit more intimate, and frankly, I think that was a good thing. Maybe some of these vendors or players who were kind of jumping into the space a couple years causing problems for us and our clients are no longer there. So it was good to connect with you some of our other friends that we really trust and know. So I thought that was my number one takeaway. The next thing I thought was really interesting was the PFAS – AFFF litigation, right? There was a breakout session on that, and what we learned is there’s a potential down the road this time next year to have the first personal injury trial.
(01:18)
So we’re focusing on really six injuries in this MDL. We have the kidney testicular cancer. Those are really the top two. We have thyroid cancer, thyroid disease, ultra colitis, and now liver cancer. Those are the focus of the MDL, but they were even talking about maybe in a year or two when the science develops, we could have another MDL with some other injuries. So that’s something to keep an eye on. And then the third thing, my final takeaway was this was the first year I’ve been to about 20 Mass Tort Made Perfect, Where there wasn’t a, the ball mass tort, you remember we had all of the excitement about Roundup or 3M ear plug or Camp Lejeune this year. We didn’t have that where there was a session where you couldn’t even get in and it was busting at the seams. But luckily for Mass Tort Made Perfect and everybody, about a week before the conference, Depo-Provera came upon the scene and this seems to be the tour that everybody’s most excited about right now.
Susan Barfield (02:12):
Yeah. So tell us a little bit as it relates to Depo-Provera, what did you learn any updates as it relates to the criteria?
Joe Fantini (02:19):
Yeah, so Depo-Provera, the first lawsuit was filed in the beginning of October. What happened, basically, there was a study that came out in March of 2024. It showed that there was a 5.6% increase of the likelihood of developing these brain tumors for women who used it for longer than a year. In fact, in Europe, there’s already a warning about this. There’s none in the us. So what we’re seeing now for case criteria is people who used it for more than a year. So they would’ve had four shots and then they were developed with diagnosed with this rare type of cancer. Those are the only ones that are being pursued right now. What I expect to happen is there’s going to be an MDL, I don’t think we’re going to get it in front of the JPML before the end of the year, but this will be our first mass tort of 2025. We’ll have litigation going on there and then simultaneously in state court. Fortunately for me in Philadelphia, we’re going to have a mass tort as well. That’s because one of the manufacturers, generic manufacturers in Pennsylvania. So we’ll have simultaneous litigation going on in the MDL Philadelphia, likely California and Illinois as well.
Susan Barfield (03:23):
And lastly, we’re all following very closely is Zantac. What is the latest that’s happening on that litigation?
Joe Fantini (03:30):
Yeah, at the conference last week, great news broke. We had a 2.2 billion settlement announced with GSK to resolve about 93% of the cases pending in state court. There’s a little over 80,000 total cases between California, Illinois, Philadelphia, most of ’em in Delaware. So this resolves over 70,000 cases. That was amazing news thinking where we were two years ago. So in addition to that, we had a Santa Fe settlement for about a hundred thousand, but the other big defendant BI cases are still ongoing, so they haven’t settled yet. So the litigation continues to turn forward. We’re happy to get this compensation for the deserving clients hoping that this settlement with GSK could really be wrapped up or formalized six to nine months, and we’ll get some compensation in the hands of these defendants. But that was probably another great takeaway from the conference. Great news. So we’re all really pleased for our clients there.
Susan Barfield (04:23):
Awesome. Well, Joe, as always, thank you for taking some time giving and sharing these industry updates. Certainly appreciate your time and hope you have a great day.
Joe Fantini (04:32):
Thanks for having me, Susan.
