A Missouri judge in a closely watched trial over infant formula sanctioned Kirkland & Ellis partner James Hurst for "bad faith on several occasions."

The Oct. 24 sanction banned Hurst, a trial lawyer from Chicago who has regularly been featured in the Litigation Daily's Litigators of the Week, from presenting evidence or closing arguments for the remainder of the trial. The case alleges that cow's milk-based infant formula made by his client, Abbott Laboratories Inc., and another defendant, Reckitt Benckiser Group's Mead Johnson, caused a potentially lethal gastrointestinal illness called necrotizing enterocolitis, or NEC.