Administrator's blog

PBDE Liability: Get ready - Point of Law .com

Once again we can envision the tort bar gearing up for asbestos type litigation to sue manufacturers of lawful products.  Or, as Michael Krauss points out in this post, “Thinking of using a new and potentially beneficial chemical compound? Get that crystal ball out first!”  Read More »

Legal Sandstorm – Worker Protection, Product Liability, and Warnings - (PDF) aiha.org

For those of you who want a history and analysis of silica litigation and silicosis cases and the relevant law surrounding them, this is a great presentation by John C. Warren, of Taylor Warren, LLC.  In it he also documents the findings of Judge Janice Jack and how that is changing the system.  Read More »

The Mouse that Roars!  Rhode Island High Court Rejects Expansion of Public Nuisance - (PDF) Washington Legal Foundation

This is a must read for anyone, clerk, justice or lawyer defending or presiding over attempts to expand the definition of public nuisance law.  The Rhode Island Supreme Court justices got it right.

Judge Janice Jack made history on silicosis issue - Caller-Times (caller.com)

This editorial in the Caller-Times shortly after the silicosis litigation in 2005 pays homage to Judge Janice Graham Jack of Corpus Cristi and explains that “... her blunt assessment that the cases representing 10,000 plaintiffs that wound up in her court were all but scams to fleece the defendant companies has badly shaken the web of lawyers, expert witnesses and X-ray technicians who have milked the legal system for millions.”  Read More »

Silicosis Ruling Could Revamp Legal Landscape - npr.org legal affairs

This 2006 article by Wade Goodwyn in NPR legal affairs shows how mass tort plaintiff lawyers use the medical screening process to file questionable lawsuits for silicosis and asbestos claims.  The judge in this case, Janice Graham Jack, accuses the doctors and lawyers of “legal and medical fraud.”

Angelos Strikes Out Again: Cell Phone Brain Injury - Point of Law.com

We can thank Judge John R. Padova of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania for throwing out the ridiculous attempt to sue a legally constituted industry, in this case the cell phone manufacturers, for operating well within the law and for following their regulatory agency’s (FCC) standards.

Regulation through Litigation - Point of Law.com

Walter Olson writing in Point of Law in 2005 shows us the seeds that were sown, which are the sources of The Wilderness and its encroachment on legal civilization.

One judge starts draining fetid legal swamp - Precision Plain English and Washington Examiner

More on the judge who upon receiving lawsuits “from some 10,000 silicosis plaintiffs to her court, seeking to have them combined for trial, returned most of the cases to the state courts where they originated, mainly in Mississippi. But not before dredging up a swamp of corruption on the plaintiffs' side.”   Read More »

Silica Order Could Affect Future Mass Tort Litigation - Law.com

Mary Alice Robbins writing for Texas Lawyer in July 2005 shows us that finally here is a judge who is exposing the questionable practices behind silicosis cases.  As U.S. District Court Judge Janice Graham Jack of Corpus Cristi, Texas, puts it in her 249-page order in In Re Silica Products Liability Litigation., "In a majority of cases, these diagnoses were more the creation of lawyers than of doctors."   Read More »

Addressing e-Discovery Challenges in Product Liability Litigation - Fios

What can drive the cost of e-discovery to exceed the total value of a product-liability case?  Unstructured data, including email, loose files, memoranda, internal reports and, increasingly, collaborative workspaces containing vast amounts of undifferentiated information and record types, according to Dennis R. Kiker in this August 26, 2008 article.    Read More »