'Filings Aren't Going Down': Bellwether Trials in Mass Torts Are Back, But They Look a Bit Different
"We just got to push on through because it has the potential to be such a large eight ball we may never get out from behind it if we don't keep trying the bellwether cases," said Timothy O'Brien, a partner at Levin Papantonio Rafferty Proctor Buchanan O'Brien Barr Mougey in Pensacola, Florida.
September 20, 2021 at 05:05 PM
10 minute read
The original version of this story was published on Law.com
In the first bellwether trial over Bard's hernia mesh, jurors were surrounded on three sides by plexiglass. Lead plaintiff attorney Timothy O'Brien called the configuration an "egg carton." In fact, in opening statements, O'Brien, who had to look through plexiglass from his own counsel table, joked to the jury that he had never tried a case "looking outside of a goldfish bowl."
But on Sept. 8, the trial in Columbus, Ohio, achieved what it was supposed to, ending with a verdict after six weeks. The jury sided with Bard. The next bellwether trial is scheduled for Jan. 10.
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