Welcome to Critical Mass, Law.com's new briefing on class actions and mass torts. I'm Amanda Bronstad in Los Angeles. This week, I'm taking a look at President Donald Trump's latest additions to his list of potential SCOTUS picks, J&J's witness tampering troubles and certification challenges with Google's pay equity class action.

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Trump's SCOTUS Shortlist: Where Do They Stand on Mass Torts? 

President Trump added five more names to his list of possible U.S. Supreme Court nominees last week. Law.com's Tony Mauro and Cogan Schneier have the story.

I reached out to University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias on the nominees and how they might approach class actions and mass torts, areas where the court's conservative appointees tend to be seen as defense friendly.

Tobias noted that two of the contenders, Brett Kavanaugh of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and Britt Grant of the Georgia Supreme Court, both worked at Kirkland & Ellis—a firm well known for its mass torts defense. (Think BP oil spill, GM ignition switch.)

But Tobias also noted that nominees with state court backgrounds are more likely to be exposed to mass torts and class actions than those on federal courts. Patrick Wyrick, for instance, comes from the Oklahoma Supreme Court. He and Kevin Newsom, of the Eleventh Circuit, also were former state solicitors general.

“They might well get those kind of cases in state court,” Tobias said.

J&J's Witness Problems

As I pointed out last week, things did not go well for Johnson & Johnson in its latest hip implant trial in Dallas. Even before losing a $247 million verdict, J&J faced accusations of witness tampering that ended up involving the FBI.

Now alleged witness shenanigans have surfaced in two other cases against Johnson & Johnson or its subsidiaries. My colleague Max Mitchell took a look at the claims in cases involving blood thinner Xarelto and pelvic mesh.

Max notes that lawyers with Drinker Biddle & Reath have been involved in each of the disputes. (The firm did not respond to a request for comment.) Plaintiffs lawyers in the Xarelto and hip implant trials alleged a J&J sales rep contacted a plaintiff witness. The pelvic mesh case—ensnared in a jurisdictional dispute—is a bit different.

Max writes in an email: “It stems from defense counsel allegedly contacting a former Ethicon employee, and then indicating to the court that they hadn't been able to find the witness.”

Apparently, the story says, plaintiffs attorneys found the witness through “a simple internet search.”

No Mulligan for Reed Smith

Think the grass is greener on the other side of the plaintiffs-defense bar divide? Reed Smith may have thought so too when it signed on as co-counsel last year representing investors in a securities class action against SAC Capital.

My colleague Christine Simmons has a story about what happened next that's a cautionary tale for defense firms considering dabbling in plaintiffs work. The investors obtained a $135 million settlement but Reed Smith came out with nothing.

And this past week a federal judge chastised Reed Smith for essentially “seeking a mulligan” by suing its former co-counsel, Wohl & Fruchter, in state court for $6.75 million in attorney fees.

U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald said she found “little about either side's conduct that is sympathetic.” Reed Smith, Buchwald added, should have sought its fees in the federal court case.

It was a short-lived representation for Reed Smith; the firm stepped out after about a month or two after SAC Capital lawyers raised conflict concerns. But apparently the potential for conflicts didn't deter other firms from vying for the assignment. Christine told me: “The firm initially was in a beauty contest with Quinn Emanuel to be co-counsel. Quinn Emanuel also had to leave due to a perceived conflict.”

MORE CLASS ACTION NEWS:

➤ Gaps in Google Case: Google has called on a San Francisco judge to reject certification and dismiss a pay equity class action it called “vague” and “sparse.”

The case parallels a Labor Department investigation that found pay discrimination among the 21,000 employees at Google's headquarters at every level. “The class spans Google's entire California workforce, top to bottom,” said Google attorneys at Paul Hastings.

➤ Lumbering On: Lawyers representing people who say they were sickened by their wood flooring are threatening to derail a $26 million settlement reached last month with Lumber Liquidators after insisting they were cut out of the negotiations. Here's my report.

Lumber Liquidators disputes the personal injury plaintiffs' facts, as does Cohen Milstein's Steve Toll, lead attorney for a class of consumers. But Toll said they got one thing right: “They wanted to be included in our mediation and we didn't want them there,” he said.

➤ Nowhere to Run: Problems are mounting for opioid maker Insys Therapeutics, which is defending lawsuits from the states of Arizona and New Jersey. Last week Insys founder John Kapoor pleaded not guilty to federal bribery and racketeering charges. Here's the report from Law.com's Kristen Rasmussen.

First order of business: Kapoor's lawyer, Nixon Peabody partner Brian Kelly, asked the court to remove his client's electronic bracelets. “Dr. Kapoor is a daily jogger, and the cumbersome bracelet makes it virtually impossible for him to run,” Kelly wrote in a motion.

➤ Smile, Johnson & Johnson!: Los Angeles Superior Court isn't known for defense verdicts. But last week, Johnson & Johnson won significant bellwether trialsinvolving its baby powder and Risperdal. According to my colleague Jenna Greene, it took the Risperdal jury less than two hours to reach a verdict.

In both cases, defense lawyers went after the credibility of the plaintiffs.O'Melveny's Dan Petrocelli, in the Risperdal case, took this parting shot at the mother of the plaintiff, asking why she didn't have photos of him as a young boy to show how the anti-psychotic drug caused him to develop enlarged breasts.

“Are you trying to tell me there is not a single picture? His mother says there were no pictures, not one picture, the only pictures were the ones that you gave to the lawyers to make the case?”

And on that family note—happy Thanksgiving to all!