Critical Mass With Law.com's Amanda Bronstad: Judge Upholds First Jury Verdict Over Opioids. Lawsuits Are Flowing Over Infant Formula.
March 09, 2022 at 12:10 PM
7 minute read
Critical Mass
Welcome to Law.com Class Actions: Critical Mass, a weekly briefing for class action and mass tort attorneys. A judge affirming a Nov. 23 opioid verdict concluded the trial was not tainted by juror misconduct, plaintiffs' closings or the exclusion of unvaccinated jurors. Abbott Labs has a new legal problem: lawsuits focused on its Feb. 17 formula recall. Find out who represents digital advertisers suing Google.
I'm Amanda Bronstad. Feel free to reach out to me with your input. My email is [email protected], or follow me on Twitter: @abronstadlaw.
U.S. District Judge Dan Polster of the Northern District of Ohio. (Courtesy photo) Judge: Unvaccinated Jurors Were 'Likely to Disrupt the Proceedings.'
U.S. District Judge Dan Polster upheld the first jury verdict in the nation over the opioid crisis. Polster, who is overseeing the opioid multidistrict litigation in Cleveland, Ohio, addressed a host of issues raised by defendant pharmacies CVS, Walmart and Walgreen's in attempting to overturn the Nov. 23 verdict. The most interesting are juror misconduct, statements made in closing arguments by Mark Lanier (The Lanier Law Firm), who represented two Ohio counties as plaintiffs, and Polster's decision during voir dire to excuse three prospective jurors who weren't vaccinated against COVID-19.
In Monday's opioid ruling, Polster concluded that he had authority under the U.S. Jury Selection and Service Act to excuse jurors who were "likely to disrupt the proceedings" because they were more susceptible to getting COVID-19 than vaccinated jurors. Polster, who initially backed down from the idea, isn't the first judge to rule on whether to exclude unvaccinated jurors from service, particularly in the months during which some trials moved forward amid a surge in COVID-19 cases due to the omicron variant. In fact, he cited decisions by other judges, all of whom focused on whether unvaccinated jurors were a "distinctive group" whose absence would deprive one of the parties of a fair trial by eliminating a cross section of the community.
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