Susan Barfield (00:06):
Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of Tort Talk Thursday. As always, week over week here with Joe Fantini of Rosen Injury Lawyers. Joe, thanks so much for spending time with me in the industry and providing updates and insights as it relates to all things mass tort.
Joe Fantini (00:19):
Thanks for having me, Susan. Always love getting together with you to talk the latest developments.
Susan Barfield (00:24):
Yeah, before we dive in and hear the latest updates, just want to take a moment and thank our sponsor, which is Case Legal Media. Case Legal Media, they really partner with law firms to help them stay in control. And unlike most marketers who rely on affiliates and upstream lead generators, which we all know leads to TCPA issues, case Legal Media generates new clients themselves. Their in-house call center has had zero TCPA complaints. They buy their own media, including television, and they have an internal team of buyers with decades of experience. Case Legal Media’s, full transparent, TCPA compliant campaigns are designed for quality and accountability, keeping firms protected while driving real retainers. If you guys haven’t, to anyone in the industry that hasn’t had a moment to connect with George or to Billy, I just highly suggest you reach out and talk to ’em. And Joe, I know that you’ve had the great pleasure of working with Case Legal Media, so I don’t know if you have anything to add.
Joe Fantini (01:18):
Yeah, they do a really good job. Like you mentioned the TCPA really important this day and age, but Billy, he’s a great guy, George, they do awesome work over there, so reach out to them, both of us. We’ve had good experience working with them.
Susan Barfield (01:32):
Yeah, for sure. So thank you again Case Legal Media. Okay, Joe, let’s dive right into it. I know you were going to provide a little bit of an update as it relates to Zantac.
Joe Fantini (01:40):
Yeah, so a lot going on in Zantac. We had the first trial in California actually got to the jury, but after more than a week of deliberating, they weren’t able to reach a verdict, so a mistrial was declared. That’s definitely a little bit disappointing for the plaintiffs here. But after speaking with the jury, it seemed like they were on our side for the majority of the charges, but couldn’t get there maybe for the specific causation in that case. Meanwhile, in Delaware, we have huge deadlines coming up this week, December 2nd, the deadline to submit the declaration of use, and then we have to get all of our records in for the proof of injury by the end of January. So that settlement’s still ongoing. And actually we’ve seen some briefing almost wrapping up here on the appeal on the MDL. So I think we could actually get a ruling on that, on our appeal of the dalbert ruling in the first quarter of 2025. So overall positive development out of that Zantac litigation.
Susan Barfield (02:34):
Yeah, that is positive. Tell us a little bit about Paraquat. I know that there was a jury selection, so tell us what that means.
Joe Fantini (02:41):
Yeah, so in Paraquat, we are all watching what’s going on here in Philadelphia. So we had the dispositive motions and the expert motions pushed back one month. They were due here in the beginning of December. They got pushed back 30 days to the beginning of January, 2025. But the judge is still holding firm for the jury selection at the end of March, 2025. So it looks like that first trial still going to go forward beginning that first week in April. So everybody’s really eager to see if we’re going to have a settlement in the next 90 days or so, or that trial’s going to be heard. So we’ll keep you guys updated here as we get closer to that date.
Susan Barfield (03:18):
Great. That’s great news. And then lastly, tell us what is happening in the world of AFFF
Joe Fantini (03:24):
We have a lot of movement going on there. So we’ve seen a lot of cases over 2000 cases have been dismissed in the MDL. Those are related to the class action water provider settlements. We have about 7,500 cases pending now related to the personal injury cases, the good news is discovery is going to be wrapping up here soon for fact discovery in the middle of December, and then coming up in the first and second quarter of 2025, we’re doing expert discovery, but we have a trial date in the beginning of October, 2025 that’s holding firm. So we have a lot of positive movement to that. We’ll be hearing from the court about the admisibility of our experts, but it’s seeming like the defendants are starting to get worn out here a little bit. They’ve been dealing with this litigation almost for a decade now. A lot of negative press, bad information coming out. So if we keep applying the pressure, I’m hoping that’ll be one of the really big settlements in 2025.
Susan Barfield (04:18):
Well, Joe, as always, super grateful for you to take time out of your week to provide these updates and insights to these litigations. And just want to say thank you again to Case Legal meet for the sponsorship this week. As always, thank you so much.
Joe Fantini (04:31):
Thanks for having me, Susan.
Susan Barfield (04:34):
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