Susan Barfield (0:00:01) – Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Tort Talk Thursday. I’m here with one of my favorite mass tort attorneys, Joe Fantini of Rosen Injury Lawyers. Joe, thanks so much for spending some time with me this week, sharing the updates and insights on all things mass tort.
Joe Fantini (0:00:18) – Thanks, Susan, for having me. Always love getting together with you and talking about the latest developments.
Susan Barfield (0:00:24) – Awesome. Okay. Well, let’s dive right in. I know you’ve got, a handful of things to talk about. One would be why don’t we start off talking a little bit about what is happening with TALC?
Joe Fantini (0:00:36) – We’ve all been waiting to get an update here since the deadline to submit whether or not the claimants approved and were in favor of the filing for the bankruptcy. It came out just recently that j and j has now increased the bankruptcy total amount by $1,100,000,000. So they’re proposing to pay 9,000,000,000 total over 25 years for the currently pending and future claims. This additional amount was negotiated by a prominent plaintiff attorney who represents over 10,000 cases. In essence, the agreement was or the proposal was the additional money to get this attorney’s clients to sign on and approve the bankruptcy plan. We’re still waiting to see if J and J files. Word on the street is that there should be a filing here in the next 30 days or so, so we’ll keep you updated about that.
Susan Barfield (0:01:35) – Awesome. Okay. Fantastic. Let’s talk a little bit about Suboxone and what, what you’re hearing as far as the latest developments there.
Joe Fantini (0:01:45) – Suboxone, we’re making some good progress here in the MDL. The first big hurdle that we’re really facing is the defendant’s motion to dismiss. The court set oral arguments during the upcoming case management conference on October 4th. While that’s going on, the court has also ordered the defendants to start producing some documents. So, hopefully, towards the end of 2024 here, we’ll survive the motion to dismiss, and we’ll get the documents to start rolling in from the defendants for this litigation to really pick up in 2025.
Susan Barfield (0:02:21) – Oh, that’s good news. Okay. Let’s talk a little bit about the weight loss drugs. What is what are you hearing as far as the updates there?
Joe Fantini (0:02:29) – Just last week here in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, we had science day. So, again, that’s the day where each side gets to present their case to the court, educate the court a little bit about the background of the product and the different studies we’re gonna be relying on. The signs, they seem to go well from all indications of the people I spoke with who were there. The judge was receptive to some of our arguments. It looks like we’re really focusing on some of those signature injuries, the gastrointestinal injuries. While that’s going on as well, we have the schedule for 3 more case management conferences later this year. Expect that one weight loss to really kick off. We just saw a huge increase in filings in August. We had almost 400 new filings in the MDL, more than doubling the previous total we had.
Susan Barfield (0:03:21) – Wow. And lastly, a tort that I know that you’re interested in in following is the toxic baby food. What are we hearing on that tort?
Joe Fantini (0:03:32) – Toxic baby food, we’re making some good progress in the MDL there. People are excited. We have a low case total right now. There’s only about 30 cases pending, but we just had an argument before the court, and we got some really favorable rulings requiring the defendants to provide the results of the testing that they performed to see whether there was any metal, in the products between 2,012 and 2021. Also, they’re gonna have to produce information about when it whether any third parties were involved in in the development and testing. Another development is litigation that’s kind of flying under the radar is outside of the MDL, we have a first case that’s scheduled to go to trial in January 2025 in California State Court. So that case is really moving forward fast. I’d be surprised if we end up seeing a verdict there, but that’s something to keep an eye on, and we’ll keep you updated as we move forward.
Susan Barfield (0:04:34) – Awesome. Well, Joe, I’ll be excited to see you next week at LF Dealmakers. If anyone’s interested in connecting with Joe or myself, we would love to, carve out some time to to visit with you. And if you wanna listen to these Tort Talk Thursdays and getting the updates and insights from Joe week over week, please make sure to subscribe below. And thank you, Joe, as always, for spending a little bit of time and getting and giving us these updates and insights. Thanks for having me, Susan.
