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The Legal Aid Network, 1309 Coffeen Avenue STE 1200, Sheridan, WY (2026)

06/03/2024

May 31, 2024 CAMP LEJEUNE UPDATE

Last week, we reported on the government’s attempt to quash the deposition of Dr. Christopher Portier, the ATSDR Director during these studies, who oversaw and was involved in the water modeling and health studies for Camp Lejeune. The government’s motion for a protective order aims to prevent the deposition, claiming Dr. Portier’s involvement was minimal and bemoaning the costs of a deposition in Italy.

Yesterday, plaintiffs’ lawyers filed a response. Their motion argues that the government seeks to disavow the ATSDR’s findings, instead embracing a critical report by the National Research Council (NRC), a private entity. Dr. Portier had defended the ATSDR’s studies, highlighting errors in the NRC’s report. The motion contends that argues that the government’s motion lacks specific factual support and that Dr. Portier’s deposition is essential to challenge the NRC report’s criticisms effectively.

Attorneys for victims also assert that Dr. Portier has willingly volunteered to testify, and they will cover the costs of ensuring the deposition is conducted in compliance with international laws. The government’s main concern appears to be the expenses involved, which the motion argues, as I did last week, are negligible compared to the context of this litigation.

06/03/2024

May 30, 2024: In a new Uber s*xual assault lawsuit filed in state court in California, the plaintiff alleges that she was s*xually assaulted by her Uber driver during a ride to a medical appointment.

The plaintiff, who ordered an Uber to take her to various locations, was picked up and driven to a medical facility in San Diego. Upon arrival at her destination, the driver allegedly entered the back seat of the vehicle, where he proceeded to touch her breasts and caress her thigh in a s*xual manner. The plaintiff asserts that this physical contact was non-consensual, and that the driver fled the scene after the assault.

The lawsuit claims that the assault has had a profound and debilitating impact on the plaintiff, causing ongoing pain, suffering, and trauma, and severely affecting her relationships with family and friends. The suit also highlights that this incident is part of a troubling pattern, noting that many other victims have similarly been assaulted and traumatized after using Uber services. The plaintiff seeks to hold Uber accountable for the assault and its devastating impact on her life.

06/03/2024

June 3, 2024: AFFF UPDATE
Over 250 new cases were added to the AFFF firefighting foam class action MDL during the month of May. That is slightly less than the number of new cases we saw last month. There are now 8,270 total cases pending in the MDL.

05/28/2024

May 28, 2024
A new bill in Congress proposes removing the restriction that cases must be filed exclusively in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. This change would permit to be heard in any district court within the Fourth Circuit for trial.

First impression: this would cause chaos that would not help anybody. These four judges making the law governing the claims creates a real organization to the litigation. I don’t always like the rulings (the jury trial ruling in particular) but this structure is helping to advance the litigation.
https://www.americancompolegal.com/active-lawsuit/?name=Camp+Lejeune

05/28/2024

May 27, 2024:
A joint case management conference was held to address various procedural and substantive issues. The litigation, centralized in the Northern District of California, involves 297 cases in the MDL and 395 lawsuits in state court in California’s Judicial Council Coordinated Proceedings (JCCP). The parties discussed the status of case filings, coordination between MDL and JCCP, discovery, and motions, including the significant issue of forum non conveniens appeals and their impact on the case proceedings.

During the conference, Uber requested a filing cut-off deadline tied to the resolution of the forum non conveniens appeal, arguing that it would promote efficiency and resolution. Plaintiffs opposed this, highlighting the potential for continued trauma to survivors and the impracticality of an arbitrary deadline.

The court also addressed the progress of discovery, with Uber producing documents while dealing with privilege issues and redactions, and plaintiffs pushing for broader non-custodial data disclosures. Both sides are engaged in a complex negotiation over search terms and custodians to ensure comprehensive yet manageable discovery.

Further, Uber’s request to begin taking written discovery from plaintiffs was a point of contention. Plaintiffs argued it was premature and could retraumatize victims. Uber, somewhat logically, honestly, emphasized the need for equal discovery opportunities to adequately defend the claims.

The court’s prior rulings have limited discovery to ride information and plaintiff fact sheets, with broader discovery potentially revisited in the future. The case schedule, including expert discovery and trial timelines, remains under discussion, with both parties awaiting further guidance from the court on these crucial aspects.

05/22/2024

New Awful Decision on Jury Trial Appeal

In a suprising decision this morning, the North Carolina Camp Lejeune judges denied a motion that sought immediate appellate review of a previous ruling which struck down the plaintiffs’ demand for a jury trial.

This decision came after the United States successfully argued for the removal of the jury trial option, a move that just two plaintiffs contested. The thinking was that the cases could move forward but these plaintiffs would appeal the decision which would, if reversed, ultimately apply to the remaining plaintiffs. It seemed like the best past to keep these cases moving and give victims a chance to adequately challenge and rectify what we think is a misapplication of the law concerning their right to a jury trial under the CLJA.

The court relied on historical precedents emphasizing that interlocutory appeals are exceptions to the general rule of awaiting final judgment before review. But we all know – and those judges certainly know – what this ruling means in practical terms. There will likely be a settlement of large blocks of Camp Lejeune lawsuits – maybe the lion’s share of these claims – before an appellate court ever reviews this jury question issue. Settlement amounts for these victims will be calcuated assuming there is not right to a jury trial. It hardly seems fair.
https://www.americancompolegal.com/active-lawsuit/?name=Camp+Lejeune

05/22/2024

May 22, 2024: UBER S*X ASSAULT UPDATE

Uber’s attempt to use the language in its app’s terms of use to prevent the consolidation of hundreds of s*xual assault lawsuits is not going to fly. On Monday, Judge Breyer ruled that the clause in Uber’s terms of use, which prohibits passengers from participating in coordinated or consolidated legal actions against the company, is unenforceable.

If the judge had ruled otherwise, the Uber s*xual assault class action lawsuit would have ended. The judge said that while the letter of the clause would end the MDL, enforcing this clause would undermine the judiciary’s ability to manage ongoing litigation and interfere with the public interests that Congress intended to protect through the creation of consolidated litigation. He ruled that “forum-selection clauses cannot ultimately affect the inclusion of the subject cases” in an MDL.

Uber’s attempt to dismiss or transfer these suits based on a forum selection clause in its terms of use has also been firmly rejected. The clause requires legal actions to be filed in the district where the alleged assault occurred. Enforcing a forum-selection cause, the judge ruled, would interfere with the “public interests that Congress sought to advance when it enacted the MDL statute.”

05/21/2024

Court Orders ATSDR to Produce Files

The court yesterday partially granted a motion by the plaintiffs requiring the ATSDR to produce certain specialized files in their original format. However, the request for a complete “mirror image” of all the water modeling project files was denied.

The ruling involves two types of files: the “Exotic Modeling Files,” which include complex data like Geographic Information System files, and a broader set of standard electronic files such as PDFs and Word documents, referred to as “Non-Exotic Files.” While the court ordered that all Exotic Modeling Files be produced in their native format according to the production specifications, it rejected the idea of producing a mirror image of all modeling files, limiting the scope of document production.

The plaintiffs have expressed difficulties in verifying the accuracy of their reconstructed model without the complete files as maintained by the ATSDR. They argue that without the mirror image, they cannot confirm if their reconstructed project file accurately represents the original. The court seems to understand there may be a problem. It has scheduled an in-camera presentation by the plaintiffs to further demonstrate the specific problems they are facing with the file functionality. So everyone can sit down and figure out what is needed.
https://www.americancompolegal.com/active-lawsuit/?name=Camp+Lejeune

05/21/2024

UPDATE:
Our AFFF lawyers are now drilling down on six specific conditions: kidney cancer, testicular cancer, thyroid disease/hypothyroidism, ulcerative colitis, liver cancer, and thyroid cancer. We also remain optimistic about the prospects for liver cancer and thyroid cancer lawsuits.

05/10/2024

May 9, 2024 – Muster Rolls Dispute
The government is saying that the muster rolls dispute we discussed in the May 5th update below is all a misunderstanding. It maintains that all relevant data and databases have been provided, specifically from a Network Attached Storage (NAS) device at Quantico, which holds the records in question.

The DOJ explains that this database has been variously named over the years, but the U.S. clarifies that the different names refer to the same database. What about the PowerPort slide victims’ lawyer found suggesting the existence of a separate “MUDD database?” The government says this is just another name for the already produced data.
https://www.americancompolegal.com/active-lawsuit/?name=Camp+Lejeune

05/10/2024

There is now an Uber class action lawsuit for s*xual assault cases. Actually, that statement is not technically correct. This is an MDL, not a class action. Our s*xual abuse lawyers call it a class action because that is what people call it. But an MDL is actually a little different.

An MDL is a legal procedure used in federal court systems to consolidate multiple civil cases that share common factual issues into a single district court. This process streamlines pretrial proceedings, including discovery and motions, to increase efficiency, reduce court costs, and ensure consistent rulings across similar cases. Every Uber s*xual assault lawsuit will have the same elements of what Uber knew about the s*xual assault of its clients and what it did to try to keep women safe. In the Uber MDL, pretrial discovery will be the same for all Uber s*x abuse lawsuits.

In October 2023, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) agreed to consolidate all of the pending Uber s*xual assault cases in federal courts into a new class action MDL. The Uber s*xual assault MDL has been assigned to a judge in the Northern District of California

05/10/2024

From the start of this litigation, there has been debate over which diseases belong in the AFFF litigation.

Right now, it is free for all. Understandably. Because the science is still evolving. But at some point very soon, the field needs to narrow, and there needs to be a plan to deal fairly with those cases that do not make the cut for the MDL, even though they very well may be viable claims.

A joint motion filed today in the firefighting foam lawsuit aims to streamline the management and adjudication of individual personal injury cases not covered under Case Management Order (CMO) 26. Specifically, it seeks to:

Identify diseases linked to AFFF exposure not covered in CMO 26 for both parties to the present peer-reviewed studies supporting or disputing these diseases’ association with AFFF by set deadlines.
Facilitate a Science Day, where experts will present evidence regarding the claimed disease associations without the involvement of counsel in questioning, ensuring a focused, scientific examination of the claims. Frustratingly, for all of this talk of Science Day, we do not have a date for Science Day. All of the deadlines are predicated on Science Day. So the most important thing about this event is that it happens.
Discuss the selection of bellwether cases for diseases identified, aiming to follow an agreed order or, failing that, competing proposals to be submitted 60 days post-Science Day. This is what gets us trial dates and puts real pressure on the defendants to settle.
Convene to outline plans for Daubert and dispositive motions, incorporating these strategies into the CMO for the identified diseases.
Impose specific requirements on plaintiffs asserting claims not listed or covered by previous CMOs, providing a structured timeline for either dismissing these “unlisted claims” without prejudice or advancing them by submitting comprehensive medical records and expert reports within specified periods. It puts some pressure on the plaintiffs to produce experts and such, but it will also protect them from statute of limitations problems when their cases are dismissed so they can refile.

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