Susan Barfield (0:00:06) – Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Tort Talk Thursday. As always, here with Joe Fantini with Rosen Injury Lawyers. Joe, thanks so much for taking time to connect with me today.
Joe Fantini – Thanks for having me, Susan. Always like getting together with you and discussing all things mass torts.
Susan Barfield – For sure. Well, hey. Before we dive right in and talk about I know we’ve got a number of updates that you’re gonna be sharing with us. I just wanna take a moment and really thank today’s sponsor of Torch Talk Thursday. Today’s sponsor is Milestone, and I don’t know if you’ve ever I really encourage anyone that has not reached out and talked with Rachel or Sam or any of the awesome Milestone group, but if you haven’t, I encourage you to do so. Milestone is a settlement administration firm that brings efficiency. They bring transparency and education to not only the law firms, but the plaintiffs as well. And they have a platform called Milestones Pathway, and it streamlines the post settlement process from release administration through payment. So thank you, Milestone.
Joe Fantini (0:01:08) – Yeah! Thanks, Milestone. I’ve had the pleasure of knowing those folks over there for more than a decade. They do a really good job. They treat the attorneys with respect. They always help the clients. And this new service they’re offering, I’m actually working with them on a new settlement I have. So really looking forward to that.
Susan Barfield (0:01:25) – Yeah. Awesome. Okay. Cool. Well, Joe, tell us what’s the skinny, what’s the update on mass torts. Let’s start off and talk about NEC.
Joe Fantini (0:01:38) – Yeah. The biggest news in mass torts world was obviously the verdict that just came down in Missouri. It was a $495,000,000 verdict in this NEC case. It included 95,000,000 in compensatory damages and then 400,000,000 in punitive damages. So really big verdict. This is the 2nd verdict, the one earlier this year in March, that was for 60,000,000. So these numbers show you how serious these injuries are and how big these cases. A lot of buzz about this litigation here going forward. We have an MDL going on that’s pretty mature, various state court roots. There’s over a 1000 cases pending, so expect this to pick up throughout the rest of this year into next year before, ultimately, they’ll have to be some sort of global settlement.
Susan Barfield – Yep. That was definitely exciting news, to learn this week. And what about AFFF?
Joe Fantini – Yeah. Some other really good news about the AFFF litigation. We’re focusing now on the plaintiff personal injury cases. The bellwether order has been entered. We’ve 9 plaintiffs from Pennsylvania and Colorado. The PA plaintiffs with testicular and kidney cancer, the Colorado plaintiffs, thyroid cancer and ulcerative colitis. Litigation’s gonna move forward focusing on these cases through the end of this year, expert discovery early next year. I’m predicting a settlement this time next year and all of those cases. So really good news in AFFF.
Susan Barfield (0:03:01) – Yeah. For sure. Anything brewing and new for Uber?
Joe Fantini (0:03:04) – Uber, we’ve been fighting this for a couple years now and the the pressure’s finally paying off. Recently, Uber was ordered to produce data, its own internal data about the reports of sexual misconduct. Uber indicated that they had 21 different categories, tracking this and only wanted to get 5 categories. The court really wasn’t hearing it. We’re supposed to get the production any day here, and then we’ll really see what’s going on and what Uber knew, and that will help these cases move forward towards a trial likely next year.
Susan Barfield – Perfect. Tell us what you know about the CPAP settlement matrix.
Joe Fantini – We’ve all been waiting to get the settlement matrix, which, you know, Susan, obviously, is an allocation method that the special master or the settlement administrator uses to apply different points for different injuries. So we just got it, a 44-page manual, one of the biggest I’ve ever seen. It makes sense because we have so many different injuries, over 20 qualifying injuries. What you need to get is the proof of usage. So the serial number sticker from your clients, then you need to get the proof of the qualifying compensable injury. And then for every injury, there’s gonna be an enhancement category related to additional treatment, additional medication. So make sure you focus on the specific compensable injury, find that in the matrix, find the enhancement categories, go get those records, and get the clients what they deserve.
Susan Barfield (0:04:29) – And lastly, what is the latest on Zantac?
Joe Fantini (0:04:32) – Zantac, our new favorite litigation that we thought was dead. It’s back to life. Like we were saying, we have a couple of trials that are actually ongoing right now in Illinois. You remember the one trial that went to verdict, which is a defense pick. Obviously, things have turned here. We have a strong plaintiff case and shockingly, GSK settled this case in the middle of trial just like it did all of the other California state cases before they got the trial. The focus is really going on in Delaware where we’re working through the bellwether process. Gonna have some requirements to produce documents in that litigation. The bellwethers are scheduled to kick off in the beginning of 2025 in Delaware. We also have some pressure going on in Philadelphia. Really good time right now to get some more Zantac cases. Have about 6 to 9 months until I think we’ll have another good settlement in 2025.
Susan Barfield (0:05:23) – Fantastic. Joe, as always, grateful for you to take the time out of your week to spend a little bit of time with us, getting us up to speed on what’s new and what’s happening in the world of mass torts.
Joe Fantini – Thanks for having me, Susan.
Susan Barfield – Absolutely. And if you wanna hear more week over week from Joe on what’s happening in the industry, please subscribe to our channel. Thank you!
