Welcome to Critical Mass, Law.com's weekly briefing for class action and mass tort attorneys. Pharmaceutical firm Purdue filed for bankruptcy after agreeing to a settlement of all opioid lawsuits—well, almost all of them. Diane Sullivan, the Weil Gotshal defense attorney whose closing was struck in a NJ talc trial last week, is calculating and strategic, lawyers say. Find out who's leading 100 lawsuits over the Ethiopian Airlines crash.

Feel free to reach out to me with your input. You can email me at [email protected], or follow me on Twitter: @abronstadlaw

Bottles of Purdue Pharma L.P. OxyContin medication sit on a pharmacy shelf in Provo, Utah, U.S., on Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2016. A Nov. 2015 forecast from health data firm IMS Health expects global sales of brand and generic prescription drugs, and nonprescription medicines, to total $1.4 trillion in 2020. Photographer: George Frey/Bloomberg

   

Purdue Pact Pushes Some States Away

 

Well, it finally happened. As predicted, Purdue Pharma filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Sunday after agreeing last week to settle about 2,500 lawsuits alleging the pharmaceutical manufacturer played a key role in the opioid crisis.

The first bankruptcy hearing was Tuesday.

The settlement resolves cases brought by cities and counties, but attorneys general from 24 states and several U.S. territories also signed onto the deal, which Purdue valued at more than $10 billion. Key behind the settlement were lead plaintiffs' attorneys in the multidistrict litigation—Paul Hanly (Simmons Hanly Conroy), Paul Farrell (Greene Ketchum) and Joe Rice (Motley Rice)—who said:

As a result of these collaborative efforts, and unlike other bankruptcies that tie up company revenues, the bankruptcy filing will not prevent us from finalizing an agreement with Purdue to bring opioid recovery resources into the communities we represent.

But not everyone is on board with the deal—and they made that quite clear. Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro called it a "slap in the face," and New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal took to Twitter to accuse Purdue Pharma of being "morally bankrupt." Others include AGs of the states of Connecticut and New York.

In a nutshell: They think they can get more than the $3 billion that the Sackler family, the founders of Purdue, agreed to provide under the settlement. But doing so could be hard in bankruptcy, and Purdue already plans to seek an injunction to shield government suits, including those against the Sacklers.

New York Attorney General Letitia James said on Monday: "It shouldn't come as a shock that Purdue's bankruptcy filing comes just 48 hours after my office exposed about $1 billion in wire transfers involving Swiss bank accounts."  

Diane P. Sullivan of Weil, Gotshal & Manges.

Opponents Call Diane Sullivan Strategic, Supporters Say She's Fair

 

A lawyer for Johnson & Johnson whose closing argument was struck last week is "calculating" and "strategic," but not unethical. That's according to lawyers who talked to me about Diane Sullivan (Weil Gotshal), whose repeated attacks against plaintiffs' attorneys prompted a New Jersey judge to strike her closing argument in a trial alleging Johnson & Johnson's baby powder caused four people to get mesothelioma. A jury awarded $37.3 million in compensatory damages.

It's not the first time Sullivan has gotten into hot water over such remarks. In 2005, another New Jersey judge admonished her in a trial over Merck's pharmaceutical drug Vioxx. But her supporters say she's simply an advocate going toe to toe with aggressive plaintiffs' lawyers.

Speaking of talcum powder: The first Georgia trial over Johnson & Johnson's baby powder and ovarian cancer opened last week.  

 

Who Got the Work?

Three lawyers were appointed to lead nearly 100 lawsuits brought by the families of victims of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, which crashed on March 10, killing 157 people. Bob Clifford (Clifford Law Offices) will serve as lead counsel, while Steven Marks (Podhurst Orseck) and Justin Green (Kreindler & Kreindler) will be co-leads of an executive committee. The crash is the second involving Boeing's 737 Max 8 aircraft, which remains grounded. Boeing has agreed to mediate lawsuits over the first crash, which killed 189 people on board a Lion Air flight over Indonesia last year.

Here's what else is happening:

Risperdal Redo: Johnson & Johnson faced its first trial over potential punitive damages associated with its antipsychotic medication Risperdal. Jason Itkin (Arnold & Itkin) opened on Tuesday for the plaintiff, Nicholas Murray. Ethel Johnson (Morgan, Lewis & Bockius) represented Johnson & Johnson's Janssen Pharmaceuticals. Murray won a $1.75 million verdict in a trial alleging Janssen failed to adequately warn about the link between Risperdal and gynecomastia, a condition in which males grow excessive breast tissue. But the Pennsylvania Superior Court in 2018 reversed a Philadelphia judge's ruling that had barred Risperdal plaintiffs from seeking punitive damages in the litigation.

Fired Up: Lawyers for victims of recent wildfires in Northern California said they would fight a proposed $11 billion deal that Pacific Gas & Electric Co. reached with insurance firms. Those firms, which claimed to have $20 billion in unsecured claims stemming from wildfires in 2017 and 2018, represent 85% of all subrogation claims pending against the California utility in its Chapter 11 bankruptcy case. Lawyers say the deal puts insurance firms ahead of victims.

Counterpunch: Clark, Love & Hutson is fighting back against four clients who accused the Texas firm of malpractice in its handling of transvaginal mesh device lawsuits. The malpractice cases allege the firm settled their cases after botching the statute of limitations—an accusation that Clark Love calls meritless. The firm says the settlements went through an approval process and were fair and reasonable.

Thanks for reading Critical Mass! I'll be back next week.