Welcome to Critical Mass, Law.com's weekly briefing for class action and mass tort attorneys. Jury selection begins today in a closely watched opioid trial, despite several last-ditch efforts to avoid it. An $8 billion Risperdal verdict notwithstanding, Johnson & Johnson is having a really good month in talcum powder cases. Find out who's repping DSW Shoe Warehouse in a closet full of TCPA class actions.

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

An October Surprise for the Opioid Trial?

Jury selection begins today in the closely watched trial over the opioid crisis, set to begin Oct. 21 in Cleveland.

But there's a lot still up in the air. Most notable, according to The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, the three major distributor defendants in the trial—McKesson, Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen—are in talks to settle all the opioid lawsuits for $18 billion.

Here's a brief synopsis of other developments:

> Two attempts at halting this month's trial failed last week after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit rejected the petitions. The defendants had sought to recuse U.S. District Judge Dan Polster from the trial, claiming he was biased. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost wanted to halt the trial on grounds that the two plaintiffs, both Ohio counties, infringed on state sovereignty.

>Teva, the sole remaining manufacturer defendant going to trial, filed a motion to sever claims against it. The Oct. 11 motion, filed by Steven Reed (Morgan Lewis), said that Teva would suffer "significant prejudice" if forced to defend itself in a trial involving only distributor defendants.

> On Monday, the defendants filed a pretrial motion to exclude "extrajudicial statements" to the press or the public, including "daily debriefings with the media on the courthouse steps."

Talc Takes a Turn for Johnson & Johnson

Johnson & Johnson might have lost an $8 billion verdict over Risperdal, but it had a winning streak in talcum powder cases this month.

Here's what happened: In Georgia, a jury ended up deadlocked after three days in an ovarian cancer case tied to Johnson & Johnson's baby powder. The next day, in California, a jury handed Johnson & Johnson a defense verdict in a mesothelioma case. Two days later, another jury, in a separate mesothelioma trial in California, came out with a defense verdict.

By Johnson & Johnson's count, that's seven defense verdicts since 2018. Kudos go to its legal teams: James Smith (Blank Rome), Debra Pole (Sidley Austin) and Mark Hegarty (Shook Hardy) in the Georgia trial, and John Ewald (Orrick) and Julia Romano (King & Spalding), in the California trials.

Leading the plaintiffs' teams were Ted Meadows (Beasley Allen) and Allen Smith (The Smith Law Firm) in Georgia, and Simon Greenstone & Panatier shareholders Jay Stuemke, Jeff Simon and Stuart Purdy in the California trials.

To top things off, Johnson & Johnson won reversal of a $110 million talcum powder verdict on Tuesday after the Missouri Court of Appeals tossed a fourth jury award in St. Louis.

Who Got the Work?

Attorneys at Akin Gump appeared for DSW Shoe Warehouse Inc. and its parent corporation, Designer Brands, in four class actions alleging the shoe retailer sent promotional texts to them over the summer in violation of the U.S. Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Partners Meredith Slawe and Michael McTigue, both in Philadelphia, appeared on Oct. 10 before the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation asking to transfer the lawsuits, three in California and one in Florida, to the Southern District of Ohio, near their client's headquarters. Both appeared in individual cases, as did Michael Stortz, in San Francisco.

Here's what else is happening:

Juul Death: The mother of an 18-year-old boy who died in 2018 after three years of using Juul's electronic cigarettes filed the first wrongful death lawsuit against the San Francisco company. Lisa Marie Vail, who lives in Florida, said in the complaint that she is "sentenced to a life of sadness" after her son, Daniel David Wakefield, died from "breathing and lung complications" while asleep at his dad's house. Levin Simes Abrams partners Mahzad Hite, Rachel Abrams, Sara Craig and Angela Nehmens filed the suit.

Explosive Claims: An Essex County Superior Court judge has approved a $143 million class action settlement over the Merrimack Valley fires and gas explosions last year in Massachusetts. The settlement, reached earlier this year with Columbia Gas of Massachusetts, excludes claims for deaths or bodily injuries. The Oct. 11 order gave class members until Jan. 9 to make a claim. Class counsel Frank Petosa (Morgan & Morgan), John Roddy (Bailey & Glasser) and Elizabeth Graham (Grant & Eisenhofer) said they would be hosting town halls about the settlement's details.

Sunshine State: Houston plaintiffs' lawyer Mark Lanier (The Lanier Law Firm) bought a waterfront mansion in Boca Raton, Florida, for $11.45 million. Lanier won a $4.7 billion verdict last year against Johnson & Johnson for 22 women alleging its baby powder caused them to get ovarian cancer. Check out the 8,439-square-foot home, which has six bedrooms and 10 bathrooms.

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