Welcome to Critical Mass, Law.com's weekly briefing for class action and mass tort attorneys. I'm Max Mitchell in Philadelphia filling in for your usual columnist Amanda Bronstad.

This week we saw a punitive damages verdict grow an already-big talc verdict by more than 10 times; Boeing changing tactics in the 737 Max 8 crash litigation, and attorneys on the other side of the globe taking note of the billions juries have awarded in cases linking Roundup to cancer.

Your feedback is always welcome. You can reach me at [email protected] or on Twitter @MMitchellTLI. You may also reach Amanda at [email protected], or find her on Twitter: @abronstadlaw.

 

Debris recovered from the crash site sits on the dockside at Tanjung Priok Port in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Oct. 29, 2018. (Photo: Rony Zakaria/Bloomberg)

Boeing Max 8 Crash Settlement Talks Take Off

In a turnaround in its legal strategy, The Boeing Co. has signaled its willingness to mediate dozens of lawsuits brought over the last year's Lion Air crash – one of two disasters involving the company's 737 Max 8 aircraft.

Lawyers for Boeing and family members suing on behalf of victims of the Oct. 29 crash of Lion Air Flight 610 in Indonesia, which killed 189 people, told a federal judge in Chicago about the mediation plan in a joint case management report filed in court last month. Boeing said it agreed to bring in a retired Cook County, Illinois Circuit Court judge to mediate, and that it planned to “negotiate now in good faith.”

According to Amanda's story for Law.com, the move represents a change in legal strategy since April, when Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg attempted to reassure shareholders about the safety of its aircraft while skirting calls for his resignation.

Brian Kabateck, of Kabateck LLP in Los Angeles, who has three of the cases, expressed some reservations about the talks, but said, “We're keeping an open mind and we're hoping that Boeing is keeping an open mind as well.”

Boeing is represented by Mack Shultz of Perkins Coie in Seattle.

 

Talc Verdict Gets $300M Boost

The $25 million awarded by a Manhattan jury to plaintiffs who linked Johnson & Johnson's Baby Powder to mesothelioma was increased late last week by more than 12 times.

The New York Supreme Court jury that had awarded the plaintiff $25 million in compensatory damages on May 22 added $300 million in punitive damages to the total on Friday – including $200 million against Johnson & Johnson and $100 million against Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc. With Friday's verdict, the total award in the case comes to $325 million.

Friday's verdict was the latest in a series of wins for plaintiffs in little more than a year, including a $117 million verdict in New Jersey state court, a $25.75 million win in Los Angeles, and a $29 million verdict from an Alameda County, California, jury.

But J&J has had its wins as well. In October 2018, another New Jersey jury issued a defense verdict, and on the same day the New York jury handed up its $25 million compensatory award, a South Carolina jury rendered a defense verdict in another mesothelioma case.

Levy Konigsberg attorney Jerome Block was lead counsel for the plaintiff, and Robert Brock of Kirkland & Ellis was lead attorney for the defense.

 

Roundup Litigation Mulled Down Under

Call them the verdicts heard round the world.

According to John Kang of The Asian Lawyer, attorneys in Australia are now considering lawsuits and investigations into Roundup manufacturer Monsanto Co.after juries linked the herbicide to cancer and slammed the company with a total of $2.2 billion in damages in three consecutive trials.

Kang reported that Sydney-based LHD Lawyers is considering a class actionagainst Monsanto, which German pharmaceutical giant Bayer A.G. acquired in June of last year for $63 billion, while local media reports say Melbourne-based Maurice Blackburn is evaluating individual cases.

Meanwhile, the Australian state of Victoria is investigating the use of glyphosate, including that by Roundup, across its public land management, according toMelbourne-based newspaper The Age. The investigation, which is being conducted by Victoria's Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, is expected to last six weeks. It is the first by an Australian state government in the wake of a series of verdicts in U.S. courts, according to the newspaper.

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Here's what else you need to know:

Dial-ed In: A federal judge in New Hampshire approved a $7.4 million class action settlement involving Dial Soap, despite warnings from the U.S. Department of Justice that the settlement provided “virtually worthless” injunctive relief and an excessive $3.8 million in fees to the plaintiffs' attorneys.

Facebook Flip-Flop?: In signaling that portions of the consumer privacy litigationfiled against Facebook Inc. in the wake of the company's Cambridge Analyticascandal may survive a motion to dismiss, the federal judge overseeing the litigation said the company's arguments at times ran counter to pronouncements the social media giant has made before regulators and to the public of late about the importance of user privacy.

NFL Class Leadership Team Trimmed: Late last month, a federal judge dismissed all but one of the leadership team in the NFL concussion class action settlement. The decision left Seeger Weiss attorney Christopher Seeger as the sole class counsel, but has displeased dissident lawyers with ex-players as clients.

Marriott Data Breach Booked: The judge overseeing the Marriott data breachlawsuit would like to book a decision on the company's motion to dismiss for some time before the end of the year. The Maryland federal judge overseeing almost 100 class actions brought over last year's breach, Thursday outlined his scheduling plans for the litigation, which included telling lawyers he planned to rule on motions to dismiss the cases by the end of 2019.