Speaker 1: Welcome to the Votes and Verdicts podcast hosted by Bloomberg Intelligence,
Speaker 1: the investment research arm of Bloomberg LP. In this podcast series,
Speaker 1: we talk about the intersection of business policy and law.
Speaker 1: My name is Holly from I'm an analyst with Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Intelligence covering consumer, industrial and healthcare litigation. Today's podcast will
Speaker 1: focus on mass fort litigation presently winding its way through
Speaker 1: the courts. I'm delighted to be joined today by Joseph
Speaker 1: Fantini of Rosen Injury Lawyers. He is a managing attorney
Speaker 1: for Rosen's mass twort department. Mister Fantini is an attorney
Speaker 1: representing plaintiffs in some of the cases we will be
Speaker 1: discussing today. Joe, would you please tell us a little
Speaker 1: bit about your background and what you do at Rosen.
Speaker 2: Hi, Holly, thanks so much for having me on here today.
Speaker 2: I'm really excited to talk to you about the mass
Speaker 2: towart landscape. It's something I'm really passionate about. But by
Speaker 2: way of background, I've been an attorney here for about
Speaker 2: fifteen years and the majority of my time have been
Speaker 2: involved with mass tourts. I initially started my career clerking
Speaker 2: for judge Arnold Knew in Philadelphia Cordacommon Please in the
Speaker 2: mass turt department. Then I moved over to Wilson Elser,
Speaker 2: which is a global insurance defense firm and defended clients
Speaker 2: and mass twart litigation before switching over to a prominent
Speaker 2: Philadelphia firm, annipol Weiss, representing plaintiffs and mass towart and
Speaker 2: class actions. For the last six plus years, I've been
Speaker 2: over at Rosen Injury Lawyers, where I had the mass
Speaker 2: tart department, and we represent individuals that have been hurt
Speaker 2: through no fault of their own by defective products and
Speaker 2: some of the biggest mass twarts out there.
Speaker 1: So your perfect person to talk to you today because
Speaker 1: we're going to be talked and that some of the
Speaker 1: master work cases winding their way through the court system.
Speaker 3: And one of those cases you've been.
Speaker 1: Involved with is litigation against Bear's Monsanto unit over we
Speaker 1: Killer round Up. The claims are that we Killer Roundup
Speaker 1: causes cancer. As listeners may remember, there there was a
Speaker 1: large settlement for about eleven billion dollars of around one
Speaker 1: hundred thousand cases in twenty twenty, but there are still
Speaker 1: about fifty seven thousand claims that have not been settled.
Speaker 1: So these cases continued to go to trial, and there
Speaker 1: were a number of notable Planet's verdicts. We saw one
Speaker 1: award for a one point five billion out of Missouri
Speaker 1: and one for two point twenty five billion out of
Speaker 1: the Philadelphia. Both awards were subsequently reduced. Of course, I
Speaker 1: should say there were a number of defence wines as well,
Speaker 1: but generally, when the jury finds in favor of the planet,
Speaker 1: the awards are many millions of dollars. So recently, Buyer's
Speaker 1: Monsanto had one notable victory at the appellate level, and
Speaker 1: that was at the Third Circuit Court of Appeals and
Speaker 1: Appellet court ruled that a planet is failure to Warren
Speaker 1: claims were preempted. Two other appellate courts, the Night and
Speaker 1: the eleven Circus, found the opposite that the planet's claims
Speaker 1: were not preempted. Joe, I just wanted to know if
Speaker 1: you could explain what the rulings mean and how the
Speaker 1: Third Circuit Court's rulings could impact the course of this
Speaker 1: litigation and potential settlement.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this was a really important decision that just
Speaker 2: came down here. Like you mentioned, this has been a
Speaker 2: long fought litigation. We had the first verdict back in
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen, and then subsequent to that in May of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one, Bare, after this settlement of the eleven
Speaker 2: billion dollars, announced its five point plan to manage the
Speaker 2: round Up litigation, and the main and first point that
Speaker 2: it had was to obtain a positive ruling from the
Speaker 2: US Supreme Court on fred federal preemption, which Bear believes
Speaker 2: could significantly alter and end this round up litigation. So
Speaker 2: basically what happened in this ruling was whether or not
Speaker 2: state law claims based on failure to warm are reempted
Speaker 2: by federal law. And Bear was alleging, since the EPA
Speaker 2: approved the roundup label without any risks associated with cancer,
Speaker 2: whether or not they needed to warn consumers later about
Speaker 2: these cancer risks. And the preemption argument is a regular
Speaker 2: defense that we see typically in mass tourch We've seen
Speaker 2: it throughout the prescription medication cases where the labeling was
Speaker 2: approved by the FDA and then thereafter the manufacturers unable
Speaker 2: to make any changes and that effectively eliminates these failure
Speaker 2: to warrant claims. So now with the Third Circuit ruling,
Speaker 2: the issue is whether or not similar to the FDA.
Speaker 2: The EPA has taken out these failure to warren state claims.
Speaker 2: So basically, from the planner's perspective, Bear spent eight plus
Speaker 2: years and eleven billion dollars hoping to get split of
Speaker 2: the circuits, and as you mentioned, their first two attempts
Speaker 2: were unsuccessful. In the ninth and eleventh Circuit ruled in
Speaker 2: Plaine's failure that the claims weren't preempted. But they scored
Speaker 2: this victory with the Third Circuit when it found that
Speaker 2: the plaintiff's failure to warn claims were preempted. So as
Speaker 2: a result of that, we saw Bear's stock increase by
Speaker 2: ten percent. And this split in authority allows Bear now
Speaker 2: to petition to the Supreme Court to get review on
Speaker 2: clarification on whether or not all of these claims are preempted.
Speaker 2: As a reference point, typically the Supreme Court receives between
Speaker 2: seven to eight thousand petitions for serve each year and
Speaker 2: only about one hundred percent or review. So from our perspective,
Speaker 2: we believe that this Supreme that this Third Circuit ruling
Speaker 2: eliminates the possibility of a global settlement. In twenty twenty four,
Speaker 2: we anticipate bear trying to get this up to the
Speaker 2: Supreme Court, and we don't foresee a larger settlement until
Speaker 2: sometime next year, after this issue is resolved.
Speaker 1: We should say that there was that after the Ninth
Speaker 1: Circuit appeal, Buyer did petition the US Supreme Court to
Speaker 1: take the case. The matter was conferenced. I think it
Speaker 1: was conferenced twice if I recall correctly, and then ultimately
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court rejected the petition. But this is different
Speaker 1: landscape now because there is this split of authority that
Speaker 1: you mentioned and that you explained another case. I know
Speaker 1: that you've been heavily involved in is Zantac litigation. By
Speaker 1: way of background, Consumers who ingested Zantac sued Zantac manufacturers,
Speaker 1: Glass of Smith, Client, Bowringer, Pfizer, and other manufacturers, claiming
Speaker 1: an ingredient Zantac degrades into our carcinogen under certain storage conditions.
Speaker 1: This has been an interesting case, sort of a roller
Speaker 1: coaster of a case because we've seen very important, very
Speaker 1: divergent rulings out.
Speaker 3: Of federal and state court.
Speaker 1: And one of those rulings occurred in four Q twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two, and that was by the Federal trial judge
Speaker 1: handling pre trial proceedings, and so what happened there where
Speaker 1: there were tens of thousands of cases or claims filed
Speaker 1: in federal court.
Speaker 3: The cases were coordinated before a court in.
Speaker 1: Florida, the Federal Court in Florida, and that court in
Speaker 1: four Q twenty twenty two decided that planeff experts were
Speaker 1: unreliable and dismissed them, And because plaintiffs couldn't prove their
Speaker 1: claims without an expert, the judge created summary judgment to defendants.
Speaker 1: But in May this year, a court in Delaware, where
Speaker 1: over seventy thousand cases were pending, found that plaintiffs experts
Speaker 1: were admissible. So, Joe, could you please explain what the
Speaker 1: courts made ruling allowing Planet off experts to testify means
Speaker 1: and why that is significant.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as you mentioned, this was a huge ruling that
Speaker 2: we were waiting on and trying to get for many years.
Speaker 2: So basically, as you mentioned, the MDL court excluded all
Speaker 2: plane effect experts, effectively ended the federal litigation. A number
Speaker 2: of cases over seventy thousand, are pending in Delaware state
Speaker 2: court and in May this year, the judge denied the
Speaker 2: defendant's motions to exclude plainiffs experts. So what that means
Speaker 2: is that the cases were able to proceed to trial.
Speaker 2: So the Delaware Court noted that in the pending California
Speaker 2: state court actions in Bobbing Xantec, where there's a few
Speaker 2: thousand cases, the judicial Council coordinated proceeding allowed the cases
Speaker 2: to proceed to general causation phase. The judge also noted
Speaker 2: in Delaware that we had different plaintiffs, we had different experts.
Speaker 2: The experts in Delaware considered ten cancers versus five in
Speaker 2: the MDL, and there was also different leadership in the
Speaker 2: Delaware state action versus the MDL. So the plainiffs have
Speaker 2: returned retained ten experts to offer general causation opinions on
Speaker 2: these ten different cancers. And in essence, the Delaware Court
Speaker 2: noted that the MDL judge's decision it wasn't binding, it
Speaker 2: was only discretionary in nature. And then after the court
Speaker 2: did a very thorough analysis of over one hundred page opinion,
Speaker 2: it found that the opinions offered by plaintiffs experts were
Speaker 2: reliable and they passed the mustard and were able to
Speaker 2: go forward and be presented to the jury. So This
Speaker 2: allowed the litigation continued to the next phase, and right
Speaker 2: now we're working on the Bellweather case workup in the
Speaker 2: Delaware state action.
Speaker 1: It was a really important decision, but in July, the
Speaker 1: defendant Manufacturers asked the Delaware Supreme Court to immediately review
Speaker 1: that decision. The Supreme Court granted the request August twenty seventh.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us why that is or is not significant?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a very significant development. So initially, on July first,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty, the Superior Court of Delaware denied the defendant's
Speaker 2: application for certification for an interlocatory appeal, finding that the
Speaker 2: expert opinion does not determine a substantial issue of material
Speaker 2: importance that merits appellate review before the final judgment. The
Speaker 2: defendants weren't satisfied with that, and they went up to
Speaker 2: the Delaware Supreme Court, and as you mentioned, on August
Speaker 2: twenty seventh, the Supreme Court of Delaware granted the defendant's
Speaker 2: certification for interlocatory appeal. So now the defendants agreed to
Speaker 2: continue with discovery and the underlying cases while this appeal
Speaker 2: is ongoing, and we have a briefing schedule where the
Speaker 2: defendant's initial brief is due October first, planning us out
Speaker 2: thirty days to spawn. Defendants have fifteen days thereafter to
Speaker 2: file their appeal, and then we're expecting an oral argument
Speaker 2: in the first quarter of twenty twenty five. We should
Speaker 2: have a ruling and anywhere from eight to twelve months
Speaker 2: from now, and that will determine whether or not plainiffs
Speaker 2: experts are able to offer their testimony at trial and
Speaker 2: the cases can proceed. So it's a huge development and
Speaker 2: everybody's going to be watching this decision, which is going
Speaker 2: to be one of the biggest mass tourt decisions in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five and beyond.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that should be a really important decision in Delaware.
Speaker 1: And in light of the courts the Delaware Court's taking
Speaker 1: the case, we're going to review that to how do
Speaker 1: you see this case playing out over the next year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So in Delaware State Court, we're going to continue
Speaker 2: to work up the cases for Bellweather trial. The plainiffs
Speaker 2: have certain requirements to offer the proof of usage by
Speaker 2: October thirty first, twenty twenty four, and proof of injury
Speaker 2: by the end of January twenty twenty five. The Bellweather
Speaker 2: trials are looking to have a trial in either Q
Speaker 2: two or Q three in twenty twenty five. Meanwhile, while
Speaker 2: that's ongoing in Delaware, we have other actions going on
Speaker 2: in Illinois State Court where there's been a couple of
Speaker 2: cases go to verdict. We're expecting at least two more
Speaker 2: trials here before the end of twenty twenty five. And
Speaker 2: then in California State Court action. What's been happening there
Speaker 2: is the defendants have settled almost a dozen cases before
Speaker 2: they got to trial, So we have those two state
Speaker 2: court actions that are active. And then in Philadelphia, there
Speaker 2: was also a recent development where the plantiffs filed emotion
Speaker 2: seeking to recuse Judge Roberts, alleging the appearance of impropriety
Speaker 2: due to his wife working at Reed Smith, which is
Speaker 2: a prominent defense firm and also represented as Antik defendant
Speaker 2: outside of Philadelphia. The motion for recusal was denied. Planeffs
Speaker 2: are seeking appeal of that decision, and that basically bumps
Speaker 2: back the trials in Philadelphia that we're supposed to begin
Speaker 2: in February twenty twenty five until the end of twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five at the earliest. So the litigations moving forward
Speaker 2: in Delaware State Court, Illinois, and California We're going to
Speaker 2: keep working up the cases while we wait for this
Speaker 2: very important decision from the Delaware Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: And Joe, you mentioned that planers are seeking to accuse
Speaker 1: Judge Roberts in Philadelphia. Is he just a child judge
Speaker 1: or what is this relationship to the Santa cases?
Speaker 2: Right? So Judge Roberts actually is in charge of the
Speaker 2: complex Litigation Department in Philadelphia Court to common please, So
Speaker 2: in ensence, he's the judge that is in charge of
Speaker 2: the whole mass Tourt department. So although we can serve
Speaker 2: as a trial judge in certain cases, typically in the
Speaker 2: Philadelphia Mass Tourt Department, he would make decisions that impact
Speaker 2: all the cases for a certain case type and then
Speaker 2: the case would be assigned to a different trial drudge
Speaker 2: for a specific trial. So he has a very prominent
Speaker 2: role here in Philadelphia.
Speaker 3: So with that, I'm going to shift gears.
Speaker 1: There's another mass sort making its way through the courts
Speaker 1: and various federal court and state court, and that relates
Speaker 1: to something called neck formula. Maker's Abbott and recommenct Beckinser's
Speaker 1: me Johnson unit face claims that cow's milk based formula
Speaker 1: for pre term infants calls caused something, and I hope
Speaker 1: I don't watch the pronunciation. Something called necrotizing entero colitis
Speaker 1: or neck, which can lead to lifelong complications. It's the
Speaker 1: disease of the intestines that infants get and the claim
Speaker 1: is that it caused this disease in pre term infants.
Speaker 1: So about a thousand lawsuits have been filed. About half
Speaker 1: of them we estimator in state court. The remainder are
Speaker 1: in federal court. There's a consolidated proceeding. And we saw
Speaker 1: two notable verdicts in state court, one out of Illinois
Speaker 1: for sixty million and one out of Missouri for five
Speaker 1: hundred million. I was wondering if you could talk about the
Speaker 1: verdics and also the status of these lawsuits.
Speaker 2: Right, So, as you mentioned, we had these two really
Speaker 2: large verdicts come out. The first was in March of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four. It was a Saint Clair, Chicago jewelry
Speaker 2: verdick for sixty million. After that we saw needs parent
Speaker 2: company it lost seven billion dollars in market value. And
Speaker 2: then later in the summer here in July twenty twenty four,
Speaker 2: a Missouri state court awarded four hundred and ninety five
Speaker 2: million to a family of an infant who developed necked.
Speaker 2: That verdict consisted of ninety five million in compensatory damages
Speaker 2: and four hundred million impunitied damage. So, as you mentioned,
Speaker 2: we have this litigation going on on multiple fronts. So
Speaker 2: as we typically see in mass tourge, we have in MDL,
Speaker 2: which here is centralized in the Northern District of Illinois.
Speaker 2: It was formed in April twenty twenty two. In the
Speaker 2: MDL we have about five hundred and sixty a little
Speaker 2: under six hundred cases. Then we also have state court
Speaker 2: proceedings going on in Illinois, Missouri, and Philadelphia. In Philadelphia,
Speaker 2: it's a little bit unique. We have claims going on
Speaker 2: involving the hospitals, which we typically aren't seeing being sued
Speaker 2: in the other state court proceedings. So in the MDL
Speaker 2: right now, the court just recently identified the four Bellweather trials.
Speaker 2: We're expecting those cases to kick off the trials in
Speaker 2: Q two of twenty twenty five. We have additional state
Speaker 2: courts that trials are set again in twenty twenty five,
Speaker 2: and the numbers you had right there was about a
Speaker 2: thousand lawsuits filed. Just something to note some of the
Speaker 2: lawsuits that were filed in state courts allowed for multi
Speaker 2: plainiff complaints, So our numbers estimate that there could be
Speaker 2: as much as three thousand plaintiffs that were injured so far.
Speaker 2: So most of the action sixty seventy percent is in
Speaker 2: state court. So we're looking forward to getting more cases
Speaker 2: in front of a jewelry here. That's likely not going
Speaker 2: to happen until the beginning of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: That's interesting, Like we had seen like a six billion
Speaker 1: market cap loss since losing a case in marchin as
Speaker 1: of July for a record, So you mentioned you think
Speaker 1: you had said you mentioned that these cases are hard
Speaker 1: to come by for plaintiffs attorneys.
Speaker 3: Can you explain why that is?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So in mass towards, we've seen some very large
Speaker 2: mass tours over the last couple of years. Three m
Speaker 2: ear plug over two hundred and fifty thousand plaintiffs and
Speaker 2: round up one hundred thousand cases have been settled in Zantac.
Speaker 2: More than one hundred thousand plaintiffs came forward. In Hernia
Speaker 2: Mesh tens of thousands, close to seventy eighty thousand plaintiffs
Speaker 2: came forward. So with these cases, the anyc cases are
Speaker 2: unique because the numerosity just isn't there. It's estimated on
Speaker 2: average thirty five hundred babies are diagnosed each year with ANYC,
Speaker 2: So even if you go back twenty years, you're looking
Speaker 2: at a total population of maybe seventy eighty thousand potential
Speaker 2: babies diagnosed with any C. And unfortunately, what we're seeing
Speaker 2: is there's a little bit of shame or concern on
Speaker 2: mothers coming forward because they blame themselves unfortunately for their diagnosis.
Speaker 2: So it's not as large of a mass toward as
Speaker 2: we've seen, and those numbers are reflected. But what we
Speaker 2: talked about the MDL with five hundred and fifty cases here,
Speaker 2: you know, we might see that go up to twelve
Speaker 2: or fifteen hundred, and then at the end of the
Speaker 2: day we're going to have a few thousand in state courts.
Speaker 2: I anticipate that we'll only end up seeing about ten
Speaker 2: thousand total cases, so it won't be a very large
Speaker 2: masterwort like some of the biggest ones, but it will
Speaker 2: get over that threshold, so it's a very important case.
Speaker 1: Obviously, this is sort of like on the low end
Speaker 1: of diagnoses per year, so it's not like a non
Speaker 1: Hodgmin from film case like where the alleged injury related
Speaker 1: to roundup where I think it's like eighty thousand or
Speaker 1: something like that, seventy or eighty thousand diagnoses per year.
Speaker 1: Here there's like thirty five hundred eighty diagnosed with neck
Speaker 1: per year. So it's going to be a lot the
Speaker 1: numbers are a number of cases going to be a
Speaker 1: lot lower. And it's interesting what you said about the
Speaker 1: shame because of the plane of mothers coming forward, because
Speaker 1: you know, one of the things we've seen in some
Speaker 1: of these.
Speaker 3: Trials is that you know, the mom's health is really scrutinized.
Speaker 1: You know, whether the mom had create clampsia or whether
Speaker 1: the mom, you know, did the mom you know, consume
Speaker 1: anything that she she wasn't supposed to during prisis. So
Speaker 1: that's a that's a pretty interesting issue in federal cases,
Speaker 1: a hearing on Dealbert motions or schedule for next year.
Speaker 3: Can you explain why the Dealbert hearings are important?
Speaker 2: The Dalbard rulings and the Dalbert hearing are usually the
Speaker 2: most important part of any mass toward case. So Adalbert
Speaker 2: hearing is a court held meeting where the judge acts
Speaker 2: as a gatekeeper, and the hearing is based on the
Speaker 2: Dalbert's standard, and what the judge tries to do is
Speaker 2: it needs to evaluate the reliability and relevancy of the
Speaker 2: expert testimony. So the judge is acting as a gatekeeper
Speaker 2: of the evidence and determining what can be permitted to
Speaker 2: reach the jury and what can't be So we know,
Speaker 2: and we've seen recently how important these decisions are because
Speaker 2: in the Zantac MDL, the judge, acting as a gatekeeper,
Speaker 2: found that the plaintiffs experts opinion were not reliable and
Speaker 2: they were excluded. In Delaware's ANTAK, the judge found that
Speaker 2: the opinions were reliable and relevant and were admitted. So basically,
Speaker 2: the outcome of MBL usually depends upon the determination of
Speaker 2: the Dallbird hearings. So once we see a Dallbird hearing,
Speaker 2: and if the defendant's motion to exclude plainiffs experts granted,
Speaker 2: then they move for summary judgment and the cases are dismissed.
Speaker 2: But if we are able to successfully win that Dallberd hearing,
Speaker 2: that applies a lot of pressure to the defendants either
Speaker 2: settlement negotiations really kick up, or were able to get
Speaker 2: the case in front of a jury where we really
Speaker 2: want to be. But if we don't have the expert
Speaker 2: opinion in these very scientific and complex cases, we can't
Speaker 2: go to a jury.
Speaker 1: In light of that, how do you see these losses
Speaker 1: playing out over the next year or so?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think these lawsuits are going to pick up
Speaker 2: steam over the next couple of years. As we mentioned,
Speaker 2: the MDL is only relatively new, being formed in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty two, so the cases will kick off. We'll get
Speaker 2: more cases in front of a jury in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: I expect there to be some more pretty big verdicts
Speaker 2: coming out, and then I anticipate some sort of inventory
Speaker 2: or global settlement coming into place towards the end of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: And now turning to another litigation against TFEST Chemicals or
Speaker 1: so called Forever Chemicals. By way of background personal injury plaintiffs,
Speaker 1: What are authorities and states to the companies Factures three
Speaker 1: M DuPont, Comores and others for ledged contamination caused by
Speaker 1: a triple F for firefighting FROME. The claims are that
Speaker 1: the chemicals contaminated drinking water which required remediation or injured
Speaker 1: those who drank the drinking water. States have also sued
Speaker 1: saying that the PPS chemicals damaged natural resources. So we
Speaker 1: saw a number of settlements, one for ten billion by
Speaker 1: three AM and one by DuPont and Comores for one
Speaker 1: point two billion, and those were class action settlements with
Speaker 1: water authorities, but personal injury cases were not part of
Speaker 1: that class action deal. Those have not been resolved. Can
Speaker 1: you walk us through where those personal injury cases are?
Speaker 2: Certainly so, this MDL is a little bit unique. So,
Speaker 2: as you mentioned, we have in the MDL before Judge
Speaker 2: Gurgle in the United States District Court for the District
Speaker 2: of South Carolina in MDL where there's water authorities and
Speaker 2: states along with individual planiffs who have the personal injury cases. So,
Speaker 2: after this md OUT got formed in late twenty and eighteen,
Speaker 2: the focus was really on those water contamination cases evolving
Speaker 2: the water authorities. We saw some of the settlements like
Speaker 2: you mentioned in twenty twenty three, twenty twenty four, and
Speaker 2: then the attention really beginning in twenty twenty four, shifted
Speaker 2: to these personal injury cases. So right now where we're
Speaker 2: at is that there's six injuries that are currently being
Speaker 2: actively litigated and those are kidney cancer testicular cancer, ultra colitis,
Speaker 2: thyroid disease, liver cancer, and liver disease. So basically, the
Speaker 2: typical plane if is someone who consumed water while living
Speaker 2: in an area known for p FoST contamination attributed to
Speaker 2: the use of firefighting foae. So the typical source of
Speaker 2: PFAS contaminations include firefighter training areas, military bases, airports, and
Speaker 2: fires stations. So in the summer here in July twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four, the court selected eleven Bellweather cases and these
Speaker 2: cases are going to focus on four injuries, and in
Speaker 2: an attempt to streamline the process, the court stated that
Speaker 2: the certain cancers, the kidney antisticular cancers are going to
Speaker 2: involve individual plaintiffs located and exposed here in Pennsylvania, not
Speaker 2: far from where I'm at. And the thighrary disease and
Speaker 2: ultra colitis cases are going to involve plainiffs that were
Speaker 2: exposed in Colorado. We have a case management conference on
Speaker 2: September thirteenth, twenty twenty four, and that's going to give
Speaker 2: us the roadmap here for this Bell Weather workup of
Speaker 2: these eleven remaining bell Weather cases.
Speaker 1: So, Joe, when do you think we'll know more about
Speaker 1: the strength of these personal injury lawsuits.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so really we got to go through wrap up
Speaker 2: the Plainiff bell Weather discovery, and then get into the
Speaker 2: expert discovery. We'll get the expert reports and then we'll
Speaker 2: have that all important Dalbert hearing. Likely towards the end
Speaker 2: of Q one or Q two, the judge will make
Speaker 2: a rolling I anticipate on individual specific injuries, so those
Speaker 2: six remaining injuries. After that we'll see which of these
Speaker 2: claims are able to proceed to trial. So sometime probably
Speaker 2: in the summer of twenty twenty five, what have that
Speaker 2: nailed down?
Speaker 1: Thank you so much Joe for joining us today and
Speaker 1: sharing are always and valuable insights. It's interesting to see
Speaker 1: what happens in these cases. Will definitely be following up
Speaker 1: with you probably in a few months from now, hopefully,
Speaker 1: so you take care and thanks so much again.
Speaker 2: Um