TL4J: Defending the Vulnerable and Holding the Powerful Accountable

BY TAYLOR OWENS

In a world where legal battles often feel like David versus Goliath, the team at Trial Lawyers for Justice has made it their mission to represent those who need it most: the everyday people, families and individuals who have been wronged and deserve justice. Led by a passionate and fearless team of trial lawyers, TL4J fights for what’s right, ensuring that the voiceless are heard, the overlooked are seen and justice is served—even when the odds are stacked against them.

While public perception of trial lawyers can sometimes skew negative, casting them as opportunists chasing settlements, the work done at TL4J tells a different story. It’s a story of sacrifice, of standing up for the vulnerable, and of transforming lives through the power of the law.

“We don’t just want to win cases; we want to change the world,” Nicholas Rowley, founder of TL4J, said. “It’s about standing up for the little guy when nobody else will.”

That ethos runs deep in the firm, whose mission goes beyond legal victories and into the realm of societal change. Every case they take on is not just about compensation for the wronged—it’s about holding powerful entities accountable, ensuring that no one is too big to face justice.

TL4J was co-founded by Nicholas and Courtney Rowley. Nicholas has achieved over $3 billion in verdicts and settlements, building his reputation as a leading national trial lawyer. His experiences have shaped him into a relentless advocate for injury victims. Courtney, equally passionate, champions the jury system and has authored several books on trial law, including Trial By Woman. She focuses on representing ordinary people in cases of personal injury, wrongful death, and other significant issues.

For those who come to TL4J, the legal system can often feel overwhelming. Clients aren’t just fighting for justice— they’re fighting for their lives, their families, and their future. Whether it’s a wrongful death case, catastrophic injury or corporate negligence, TL4J steps in as the last line of defense for people who have nowhere else to turn.

“There’s this perception that trial lawyers are greedy or manipulative,” Rowley said. “The truth is, we are the last line of defense for people who’ve been wronged and need a voice.”

Read the rest of the article here.

Trial Guides Authors Secure Record-Breaking $412 Million Verdict in Medical Malpractice Case

From Trial Guides:
Dec 09, 2024

Congratulations to Trial Guides authors Nicholas Rowley and Theresa Bowen Hatch, along with Keith Bruno and the Trial Lawyers for Justice team, for securing a $412 million medical malpractice verdict in a lawsuit against a men’s health clinic. 

In Sanchez v NuMale a jury returned a record $412 million verdict, including $375 million in punitive damages against the Las Vegas-based defendant, who was found 100 percent at fault in a botched penile injection procedure. Rowley called the defendant’s actions a "fraudulent scheme to make millions off of conning old men."

The case was brought by Bencoe & LaCour Law, PC, a New Mexico partner firm of Trial Lawyers for Justice, a national trial law firm founded by Trial Guides authors Nick and Courtney Rowley. According to Newsweek and other sources, this is the largest recorded medical malpractice payout for a single plaintiff.

Case: Sanchez v NuMale

Country: Bernalillo County, Albuquerque NM

Total Verdict: $412,005,149

The Case

The Defendant

NuMale is a multi-state men's health center, founded in 2013 and based in Las Vegas, Nevada, with a clinic in New Mexico. The company reportedly offers treatments for erectile dysfunction, hair loss, premature ejaculation, testosterone replacement therapy, and weight loss. 

Among their listed treatments for erectile dysfunction is Trimix injections: “a precise combination of three powerful vasodilators—papaverine, phentolamine, and prostaglandin E1—each targeting different aspects of the physiological process that leads to an erection.” The defendant claims that this treatment “not only increases blood flow but also enhances the duration and quality of an erection, making it suitable for sexual intercourse.”

The Plaintiff

The plaintiff, then a 66-year-old widower, first visited NuMale Medical Center in 2017 for fatigue and weight management. The clinic misdiagnosed him and instead treated him for erectile dysfunction (ED) in order to sell him invasive penile injections for “rehabilitation." The plaintiff had stated he only wanted testosterone for fatigue and weight loss. Evidence showed that he had left his entire sexual health history blank on his intake form.

Though the plaintiff disclosed multiple medical conditions and repeatedly told them he was widowed and not sexually active, the NuMale staff did not adjust their treatment to meet his lifestyle or goals. Instead, the physician's assistant (PA) injected him with the chemical, diagnosed him with ED, and told him that doing nothing would cause irreversible harm only their medicine could cure.

The plaintiff momentarily felt hope that he may have a love life again after losing his wife five years earlier. Instead, after an emergency surgery following a painful, 60-hour erection (priapism) just a few weeks later, the plaintiff was left with a completely scarred and nonfunctional penis. According to plaintiff attorney Lori Bencoe, these treatments left the plaintiff “permanently damaged, robbing him of the ability to share intimacy or even urinate normally for the rest of his life." 

Trial By Woman by Courtney Rowley and Theresa Bowen Hatch is available in paperback and ebook.

A Treatment Gone Wrong

After NuMale’s PA administered the unnecessary test, diagnosed him with ED, and prescribed a package of injections and testosterone, their nonmedical salesperson followed a marketing sales script written by the nonmedical owners. (At trial, the salesperson testified that NuMale was “just another sales job.” Before working for NuMale, he sold insurance, and he now sells HVAC systems.)

The plaintiff picked up his injection medicine about a week after his initial consult, and was “trained” in its use by a member of NuMale’s staff. On the same day, he also had testosterone pellets inserted and underwent a medically untested platelet-rich plasma procedure that the defendant claimed would heal damaged vessels in his penis (and increase size). At trial, the plaintiff’s expert called this false and stated that PRP was experimental at best.

The total cost of the procedure was $5,000, plus a $149 consultation fee. The defendant did not offer a single written discharge instruction to follow in case of emergency.

Just weeks later, on a Friday afternoon, the plaintiff returned to the clinic after having trouble with the injections he was instructed to self-administer twice weekly at home for therapy. Without assessing if he was doing them properly, the PA injected him with a 75% stronger dose of medication to induce another erection.

Then, contradicting NuMale’s own policy, the PA gave no antidote, but just instructed the plaintiff to “go home and show your friends.” The plaintiff signed no consent form and was offered no additional training for using the home antidote, which the plaintiff was unable to inject.

The plaintiff went home and attempted to inject the antidote multiple times without success. He spent a weekend in pain, not knowing what to do. Nobody told him that after six hours, irreversible tissue damage could occur inside his penis.

When he returned to NuMale on Monday morning, 60 hours into a sustained erection (priapism), the PA had to call his supervising doctor, who was running another clinic in Beverly Hills, to ask what to do. Procedures to reverse the priapism failed, and the NuMale staff told the plaintiff to drive himself to the ER, where the urologist performed an emergency surgery.

Instead of taking responsibility for medical fraud and unconscionable business practices, however, NuMale blamed the plaintiff for not going to the ER sooner. They also attempted to blame him for not calling the hotline number on the medical disclosure form, which he had not received, during the initial office visit more than three weeks prior. The jury heard testimony that Numale called the injury “self-inflicted.” 

“A Recklessly Negligent Twist”

In what plaintiff attorney Lori Bencoe called “a recklessly negligent twist,” the non-medical salesperson also had the job of training men how to self-inject the medicine, and administer the antidote in case of an emergency, on a dummy penis. He also admitted, under oath, that the 37 pages of consent and information forms NuMale had the plaintiff initial and sign usually just went into the file, and they only gave them a copy to their client when specifically requested.

The plaintiff was not proffered emergency care instructions or a hotline number. Moreover, a local urologist testified that another patient had called NuMale’s hotline number and got no response. 

Evidence showed that NuMale’s job description for the PA promised “no call, no after hours and no emergencies”—while offering bonuses based on sales and number of procedures.

The Mechanics of Medical Fraud

According to trial counsel Keith Bruno, NuMale falsely marketed itself and engaged in duplicitous business practices. For example, NuMale claimed that its injections would cure latent tissue disease in the penis, make the penis bigger, and if injected twice a week for a year, would cure ED in most men, allowing them to get off drugs altogether. None of these claims are medically true. But in order to convince the patient that there was a problem and NuMale offered the cure, NuMale staff would induce an erection by injecting a medicine into the penis, as a proof of concept and efficacy, and then “diagnose” ED to sell their treatment packages. Their marketing materials falsely informed patients that ED left untreated would cause irreversible damage, atrophy, and fibrosis to the penile tissue if they did not take two to three penile injections per week as rehabilitative therapy, regardless of sexual activity. (This is false.)

According to Bruno, while their ads never mention injections, the company’s principal owner has called testosterone the “gateway” to get men into their clinics. Once there, most patients end up on the “FDA-approved, 98% effective ED treatments” that the company claimed could cure ED after six to twelve months of regular use. (This is also false.)

Once in the clinic, men who asked for testosterone would be given a “test” that the defendant would say was “medically necessary to evaluate erectile function;” internal training materials called this injection test “mandatory.” This test promptly caused a chemical erection, which would encourage men to buy the product.

The Trial

Lori Bencoe, an attorney for the plaintiff, describes the experience of taking this case to trial with the team: “Our firm has been working with Nick Rowley, Theresa Hatch, and Trial Lawyers for Justice since 2019,” she says, “but this was our first opportunity to try a case with them. Theresa made tactical evidence decisions and took some great discovery depositions for use at trial. Keith [Bruno] and Nick are a lot of energy in a courtroom and total class acts. Nick’s jury selection was masterful—it was his 181st—and [the judge] permitted over a day to assure that we got a good fair and unbiased jury.” 

Voir Dire and Opening Statement by Nick Rowley, Courtney Rowley, and Wendy Saxon is available in paperback and ebook.

In the years of discovery and pretrial motions, the defense failed to respond to nine motions to compel. This resulted in the plaintiff team gaining access to all of internal training, marketing, sales, and hiring documents under a pretrial order. Shortly before trial, the plaintiff team successfully challenged the confidential status of those exhibits, which enabled them to prosecute NuMale from a perspective of transparency about its business practices. 

New Information about the Treating Physician Assistant

At trial, it was revealed that the treating PA was hired in spite of a worrisome work history. He had lost a job for taking drugs off a cart in the OR, for example, and he was a disaster witness for the defense. Nick Rowley held him to his prior testimony, even as the PA kept changing it. He admitted to telling the plaintiff to “go home and show your friends.” 

At trial, the PA admitted that all the forms NuMale had new patients sign were put in their file after initial consultation, and no later consents were given. He testified that when he was at NuMale, they had “lots” of priapisms but he could usually take care of them in the office. 

The PA also admitted to falsifying the plaintiff’s records after learning about the Board Complaint lodged against him; he added untrue things about the plaintiff that would help him, such as a lie that he had tried Viagra in the past without success. 

After an official Board Complaint, the PA entered into an Agreed Order and is no longer practicing. 

Pursuing Damages against the Parent Company

NuMale Albuquerque was run and managed by two subsidiary companies of NuMale Corporation, based out of Las Vegas Nevada. The plaintiff team presented evidence showing that NuMale Corp was responsible for all ads, staffing, and management decisions for all twelve clinics, and the parent and subsidiary companies were all owned and operated by the same four individual codefendants. 

Finding that Numale Corporation fully dominated its subsidiaries for an improper purpose, the trial judge acting in equity granted the plaintiff’s motion to pierce the corporate veil and hold the parent company responsible for all the conduct of its subsidiary companies in New Mexico. The jury’s verdict also found that the parent, its two subsidiaries, and all four of its principal owners-officers were civil co-conspirators.

Proving Inappropriate Medical Treatment

At trial, the plaintiff team explained that penile injections carry inherent risks; in accordance with medical guidelines, they require dose titration, patient training by a trained urologist, and ongoing monitoring for dangerous side effects. The FDA specifies that the use of psychotherapy and pills should be explored before this medical procedure, and even then, this procedure is only appropriate for patients who wish to be sexually active.

The plaintiff did not come to the clinic seeking treatment for ED, and had no partner. That did not dissuade NuMale from hawking and administering a product that was wholly inappropriate for their client. 

Internal training documents even mocked men who sought therapy for treatment for erectile dysfunction. In one shocking slide, the company even said that if psychotherapy works to treat his ED, “then the guy may be [a pussy].” When presented at trial, the jury was unimpressed with this crass machismo.

The Verdict

After three and a half hours of deliberation, the jury returned a unanimous verdict for the plaintiff. The jury found that NuMale engaged in fraud, negligence, and unconscionable UPA violations, awarding $375 million in punitive damages in addition to $37,005,149 in compensation for the plaintiff’s irreparable injuries. According to the foreperson, the jury hoped the compensatory verdict would care for the plaintiff’s lifetime medical needs, and also wanted him to get back every penny he paid NuMale: $5,149.

At over $412 million in total damages, this is the largest medical malpractice verdict in the U.S. to date.

Compensatory Damages: $37,005,149

Punitive Damages: $375,000,000

Total Verdict: $412,005,149

Keith Bruno hopes the verdict “sends a powerful message that medical providers cannot prioritize profits over patients' well-being without being held accountable."

Damages Evolving by David Ball, Artemis Malekpour, Courtney Rowley and Nicholas Rowle is available in paperpack, ebook and audiobook.

Monsanto PCB Jury Hears About Ex-Schoolchildren's Illness

By Cara Salvatore ·  Listen to article

Law360 (November 18, 2024, 11:24 PM EST) -- Four teenagers and a mother suing Monsanto over PCB damage at their former school took the stand Monday to testify, some tearfully, about physical and mental maladies they believe stem from exposure to decades-old light fixture fluid.

The jury in the trial heard from 16-year-old Rowin Grant, 13-year-old Mabry Grant, 19-year-old Hudson Snyder, 15-year-old Nolan Simmer, and Rowin and Mabry's mother, Donya Grant, in a trial now stretching into its fifth week over exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls at Sky Valley Education Center in Monroe, Washington.

The witnesses spoke of suffering from headaches, lack of appetite, skin conditions, memory loss, emotional outbursts, insomnia, inability to focus and fear about being able to maintain normal relationships or losing their faculties to a greater degree as they grow older.

"How often do you worry about what it'll be like later?" a lawyer for the plaintiffs asked Rowin Grant.

"Often," she said.

"Your sister Mabry, do you take care of her?" the lawyer asked. Rowin Grant's face crumpled, and tears welled up in her eyes as she looked down.

"That's all I have," the lawyer said.

A few hours later, when their mother, Donya Grant, was on the stand, she said her elder two children, Hadley and Kemper, had also experienced problems that started or restarted after their Sky Valley attendance.

Speaking calmly and clearly but rocking back and forth for the entirety of her testimony, Donya Grant said she had experienced "more headaches, more difficulty controlling my emotions," a newly unpredictable menstrual cycle and fatigue. "It was unusual for me to be at home in the middle of the day and feeling like I needed a nap, but I felt that more often," she said.

Meanwhile, Hudson Snyder said he and his younger brother Emmett — who is expected to testify Tuesday — both have serious problems with their appetites.

"It's kind of a graphic comparison, but both myself and Emmett have been compared to Holocaust survivors multiple times by doctors and other people," Hudson said. He also stated that he struggles seriously with decision-making and follow-through, even on things that he had been highly interested in.

Lawyers for Monsanto focused their cross-examination on what the plaintiffs do seem to be able to do. Rowin said she plays sports seriously and practices piano. The Grants are homeschooled and receive high grades.

And Hudson Snyder has taught himself figure drawing by studying textbooks — some of his highly detailed work was shown during his cross-examination. He also plays guitar in a band and snowboards, he said on cross-examination.

Monsanto's attorneys were also able to establish that many of the children were not at the school complex full-time, but spent a few hours a day there a few days a week.

In 2011, the multibuilding Sky Valley Educational Center, about 35 miles northeast of Seattle, took over a 1967 building complex in which old fluorescent light fixtures and classroom caulk were slowly releasing polychlorinated biphenyls, the plaintiffs claim.

The ongoing trial involves student Gunnar L.G. Rose and 14 other individuals who claim they developed a variety of health conditions due to the use of the school buildings.

Monsanto sold numerous formulations of the dielectric insulating liquids under the brand name Aroclor, producing 1.2 billion pounds of them from the 1930s to the 1970s, juries have heard. The fluid filled small capacitor ballast boxes in hundreds of fluorescent light fixtures at the complex. But the company knew for decades of the now-banned chemicals' extreme toxicity, lawyers said.

The case is the tenth Sky Valley case to go to trial; Washington's Supreme Court has agreed to take up the first of them, called Erickson, after three teachers' $185 million victory was overturned in May by the state's Court of Appeals.

Pharmacia LLC, a Monsanto spinoff that its once-parent is defending in litigation over PCBs made from the 1930s to 1977, faces an additional $1.1 billion-plus in verdicts from the trials but has appealed those losses. Monsanto was acquired by Bayer AG in 2018.

This jury recently heard from industrial hygienist Kevin Coghlan that Monsanto-made PCBs were "pervasive" at the school complex. Coghlan said different Aroclor formulas, identified by four-digit numbers, were in materials like caulk as well, not just ballast boxes.

The Rose plaintiffs are represented by Henry Jones, Sean Gamble, Richard Friedman, James Hertz and Ronald Park of Friedman Rubin PLLP, Colleen Peterson and Bridget Grotz of Pfau Cochran Vertetis Amala PLLC, and Nicholas Rowley, Courtney Rowley and Theresa Hatch of Trial Lawyers for Justice.

Monsanto is represented by Steven Fogg, Emily Harris and Lucio Maldonado of Corr Cronin LLP, Liz Blackwell and Darci Madden of Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP, Kimberly Branscome of Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison LLP, Anthony Upshaw of McDermott Will & Emery LLP and Lindsey Boney IV of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP.

The case is Gunnar L.G. Rose et al. v. Pharmacia LLC, case number 87281-8, in King County Superior Court.

--Editing by Kristen Becker.

Monsanto PCBs 'Pervasive' At School, Scientist Tells Jury

Monsanto PCBs 'Pervasive' At School, Scientist Tells Jury

By Cara Salvatore ·  Listen to article

Law360 (October 29, 2024, 11:14 PM EDT) -- Monsanto-made PCBs were "pervasive" at a Washington school, an industrial hygienist testified Tuesday in the latest trial over illnesses there before being grilled by defense counsel about the integrity of his material samples.

Scientist Kevin Coghlan walked a jury through the results of multiple rounds of testing by various environmental companies as well as by his own outfit concerning the multi-building Sky Valley Educational Center, about 35 miles northeast of Seattle, which in 2011 took over a 1967 building complex in which old fluorescent light fixtures and classroom caulk were slowly releasing polychlorinated biphenyls, plaintiffs claim.

"The PCB levels were pretty much scattered around the entire campus of Sky Valley. They were pervasive throughout the facility, either in bulk materials, or in the air in a number of cases, or certainly within light fixtures that were wipe-sampled," Coghlan told the jury, referring to sampling by swabbing a surface.

The ongoing trial involves student Gunnar L.G. Rose and 14 other individuals who claim they developed a variety of health conditions due to use of the school buildings. Monsanto sold numerous formulations of the dielectric insulating liquids under the brand name Aroclor, producing 1.2 billion pounds of them from the 1930s to the 1970s, juries have heard. The fluid filled small capacitor ballast boxes in hundreds of fluorescent light fixtures at the complex. But the company knew of the now-banned chemicals' extreme toxicity for decades, lawyers say.

Coghlan said different Aroclor formulas, identified by four-digit numbers, were in other materials as well, not just ballast boxes.

Aroclors "1016 and 1242 is fluid within metal capacitors," Coghlan told the jury. "The 1260 is actually in that brown or black material in the capacitor, [and] the caulking itself that's all around the building would have 1254 in it."

These chemicals are so good at spreading by air that, for example, 1016 was found in the caulk because the vapor spread and stuck there, Coghlan said.

From the various data available, he estimated that throughout the school, from the time it began being used by Sky Valley in 2011 until before the remediation in 2016, the PCB levels were anywhere from undetectable to 3,000 nanograms per cubic meter.

Various government agencies put the safe level much lower, Coghlan said.

Coghlan showed jurors documents explaining that an environmental company called PBS did testing in 2016; a company called ALS Environmental tested in 2016 as well; and a company called EHSI did some limited testing in 2014.

Years later, Coghlan himself also received samples of carpet that had been preserved by an educator at the school, a Dr. Yost.

On cross-examination, a defense lawyer for Monsanto suggested to Coghlan there was no way to be sure these samples were in good shape because of how they had been stored by the educator from 2016, when she collected them, until 2019.

She asked Coghlan whether Ziploc bags are porous when it comes to PCBs; Coghlan said they can be, and admitted that was how Yost stored them.

"But you don't have any idea what was going on in Dr. Yost's basement for the three years before?" the lawyer asked. Coghlan answered that Yost hadn't indicated there was anything notable about the storage environment.

"You didn't take air measurements, right?" the lawyer asked. Coghlan agreed he hadn't.

He also admitted Yost had stored the usable samples in the same room as a sample that was considered inappropriate for exposure testing because it had been so saturated with PCB oil residue from a leak. Coghlan agreed they were all stored in Ziplocs in the basement.

Cross-examination continues Wednesday.

The case is the tenth Sky Valley case to go to trial; Washington's Supreme Court this month agreed to take up the first of them, called Erickson, after three teachers' $185 million victory was overturned in May by the state's Court of Appeals.

Pharmacia LLC, a Monsanto spinoff that its once-parent is defending in litigation over PCBs made from the 1930s to 1977, so far faces an additional $1.1 billion-plus in verdicts from the trials but has appealed those losses. Monsanto was acquired by Bayer AG in 2018.

The Rose plaintiffs are represented by Henry Jones, Sean Gamble, Richard Friedman, James Hertz and Ronald Park of Friedman Rubin PLLP, Colleen Peterson and Bridget Grotz of Pfau Cochran Vertetis Amala PLLC and Nicholas Rowley, Courtney Rowley and Theresa Hatch of Trial Lawyers for Justice.

Monsanto is represented by Steven Fogg, Emily Harris and Lucio Maldonado of Corr Cronin LLP, Liz Blackwell and Darci Madden of Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP, Kimberly Branscome of Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison LLP, Anthony Upshaw of McDermott Will & Emery LLP and Lindsey Boney IV of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP.

The case is Gunnar L.G. Rose et al. v. Pharmacia LLC, case number 87281-8, in King County Superior Court.

--Editing by Emily Kokoll.

Rose et al. v. Pharmacia LLC Trial begins in Seattle

Law360 (October 17, 2024, 11:12 PM EDT) -- Monsanto is continuing its appellate bid to put off a chemical poisoning trial already underway in Washington state court as the plaintiffs told a Seattle jury on Thursday the company owes them more than $450 million, in the 10th such trial tied to an Evergreen State school.

Counsel for a group of families told the King County Superior Court jury Monsanto owes each of the 15 individuals a baseline $30 million to $50 million in compensatory damages, plus punitive damages to be requested at the end of the trial, for manufacturing the industrial chemicals that they say triggered brain damage and other lifelong health issues.

"Justifiably passing judgment against one of the largest chemical corporations in the world is what we hope you do at the end of this trial," Courtney E. Rowley of Trial Lawyers for Justice, representing the families, told jurors.

Led by former student Gunnar L.G. Rose, the families are among the nearly 200 people who claim they were sickened by polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, from florescent light ballasts and building materials at the Sky Valley Education Center, 35 miles northeast of Seattle.

But on Wednesday, Monsanto filed motions urging the Washington Court of Appeals to rethink a commissioner's decision this week to let the trial go forward, saying again that the proceedings need to be paused until the Washington Supreme Court addresses overlapping issues in the case. The justices agreed last week to hear three teachers' request to reinstate their $185 million victory in Erickson v. Pharmacia that was overturned in May by the Court of Appeals.

Pharmacia LLC, the spinoff that Monsanto has agreed to defend in litigation stemming from its manufacture of PCBs from the 1930s to 1977, so far faces an additional $1.1 billion-plus in verdicts from the trials but has appealed those losses. Monsanto was acquired by Bayer AG in 2018.

Monsanto on Wednesday moved for the court to modify the ruling letting the trail proceed, citing the trial judge's recent decision to admit disputed testimony from an industrial hygienist for the families regarding the levels of PCBs at the school.

The trial court "has now indicated that it intends to allow the very expert opinions from plaintiffs' PCB exposure expert (Kevin Coghlan) that this court held in Erickson are not generally accepted in the scientific community and should have been excluded," the company told the Court of Appeals.

Monsanto said there was a "substantial risk" of reversal of any verdict in the case that would "render the current trial a colossal waste of resources — not only for Pharmacia, but also for the jurors, witnesses, and court personnel, including this court on review."

King County Superior Court Judge Michael Ryan has not yet issued an opinion explaining his reasoning for allowing Coghlan's opinions in the Rose trial, although when refusing Monsanto's recent request for a stay late last week he suggested the Rose case record includes more evidence supporting the legitimacy of the calculations than the record in the Erickson case.

Coghlan's methods weren't discussed in detail during opening arguments on Thursday, but Rowley told jurors the industrial hygienist is an "industry leader" and expert on PCBs in schools who would be providing estimates of the chemical levels at Sky Valley at the time the plaintiffs were there. There were no reliable monitors in place then, Rowley said, and the PCB-containing material had mostly been removed by the time testing was done in 2016.

"No one can precisely say how much — what our people were exposed to at the time they were going to Sky Valley school," Rowley said. "That's common in these school PCB cases, because no one knew anything about PCBs — or that they were breathing them."

As in past trials, the families plan to show that the company concealed its knowledge of PCBs' health effects from the public and manipulated the science to downplay the dangers. Monsanto will present evidence that it adequately studied the chemicals and warned of potential risks, and that the health conditions at issue can't be blamed on PCBs.

Kimberly O. Branscome of Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison LLP, representing Monsanto, told jurors they will get to see reliable testing results showing PCBs were mostly undetectable in the air and on surfaces inside the school at the time the plaintiffs were there, with a few samples indicating low levels that wouldn't pose a health risk.

"There is actual data about the PCB levels at Sky Valley Education Center, and you will get a chance to look at that data," Branscome said.

The trial, expected to last about two months, features the claims of three mothers and a dozen youth who spent time at the school as children between 2011 and 2016 while participating in hybrid programs for homeschooling families. They say their conditions include gastrointestinal problems, cognitive and emotional difficulties, hormonal abnormalities and reproductive system issues.

One mother was also hospitalized for two months after spending time at the school and has never regained full functioning of the right side of her body, Rowley told jurors.

Monsanto has contended that the trial court violated its due process rights by consolidating two groups of plaintiffs into one group of 15 in the Rose trial, saying jurors can't possibly determine whether PCBs are responsible for each of the injuries claimed by each person.

Branscome encouraged jurors to look for evidence in the medical records about whether the problems were diagnosed or treated by the families' doctors.

"It's important to remember that each individual and each claimed condition has to be looked at on its own to see if the evidence supports causation," Branscome said.

The Rose plaintiffs are represented by Henry G. Jones, Sean J. Gamble, Richard H. Friedman, James A. Hertz and Ronald J. Park of Friedman Rubin PLLP, Colleen Durkin Peterson and Bridget T. Grotz of Pfau Cochran Vertetis Amala PLLC and Nicholas C. Rowley, Courtney E. Rowley and Theresa Bowen Hatch of Trial Lawyers for Justice.

Monsanto is represented by Catherine W. Smith and Howard M. Goodfriend of Smith Goodfriend PS, Steven W. Fogg, Emily J. Harris and Lucio Maldonado of Corr Cronin LLP, Liz Blackwell and Darci F. Madden of Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP, Kimberly O. Branscome of Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison LLP, Anthony N. Upshaw of McDermott Will & Emery LLP and Lindsey C. Boney IV of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP.

The case is Gunnar L.G. Rose et al. v. Pharmacia LLC, case number 87281-8, in the Washington Court of Appeals, Division I, and case number 18-2-58239-3, in King County Superior Court.

--Editing by Brian Baresch.

For a reprint of this article, please contact reprints@law360.com.

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Monsanto hit with $857 mln verdict over PCBs in Washington state school

Dec 18 (Reuters) - A Washington state jury on Monday ordered Bayer's Monsanto to pay $857 million to seven former students and parent volunteers of a school northeast of Seattle who claimed that chemicals known as PCBs made by the company leaked from light fixtures and made them sick, according to court documents.

The jury in Seattle found the company liable for selling polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) used in the Sky Valley Education Center in Monroe, Washington that were not safe and did not contain adequate warnings. The verdict included $73 million in compensatory damages, and $784 million in punitive damages.

The plaintiffs included five former students and two parents who spent time at the school 7 to 18 years ago. They claimed exposure to PCBs at the school caused them to have neurological, endocrine system and other health concerns. Read the whole story here.

Monsanto ordered to pay $857 million over toxic PCB exposure

We could not be more proud of the work Theresa put into this case. The jury’s decision reflects the team’s dedication to bringing justice to their clients.

From MSN:

Monsanto on Monday was ordered to pay $857 million to a group of seven former students and parent volunteers at a Washington state school who claimed the company's chemicals sickened them. 

The judgment, which was reported by Bloomberg, AFP, Reuters and other news outlets, comes as Monsanto is facing thousands of lawsuits over its weed-killing chemical Roundup. Last month, the company was ordered to pay $332 million to a man who said Roundup caused his cancer.

Read the full article here.

How everyday people started a movement that's shaping climate action to this day

From NPR:

Deborah and Ken Ferruccio were driving in their red truck down a rural North Carolina highway one night in 1978 when they suddenly came upon big yellow signs reading: "Caution, PCB chemicals spilled along roadways." There was a three-foot swath of a brown substance along the sides of the road that was smelly and seemed toxic.

"I was very confused because I knew something about chemicals and I didn't know exactly the specifics on PCBs, but the signs indicated they were very serious," Ken says.

Immediately they wondered if the danger was airborne, and whether they should close the windows — or open them. Should they be worried about exposure at all, since they weren't in direct contact with the sludge?

Ken didn't know what to do.

"And it was literally like the awakening of our lives," Deborah says.

They were shaken by the experience. But it was just the beginning of their encounter with polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs — highly toxic human-made industrial chemicals used in factories. The more they learned about PCBs, the more concerned they got. And then they organized to fight back.

All around the world, there's a tragic history of industries dumping their waste or setting up their most hazardous facilities in communities viewed as politically powerless or less likely to protest their presence.

But the people of Warren County found that they were not powerless. Fueled by the spirit of the civil rights movement, they challenged their own political leaders over the toxic chemicals being dumped in their community. In the process, they helped birth a national movement, one that would eventually put environmental justice on the national agenda — and is shaping the fight for climate action today.

Read the entire article here.

Thoughts about AI by Theresa

Thoughts about AI by Theresa

I just attended a seminar put on by Filevine about AI. The speakers were:

• https://law.stanford.edu/directory/megan-ma/

• https://mtmp.com/speaker/cain-elliott/

I went into this with a  very open mind. My big picture takeaway is, this technology has not been harnessed or had boundaries applied. There are two types of AI that were discussed, largely: 1. chatgpt style that culls info from the internet at large and drafts something for you, and 2. AI technology that pulls only from the information you provide, ie a file in FV. 

My biggest takeaways re concerns:

AI doesn’t distinguish between what’s true on the internet and what’s not true. The source of information for your AI prompt is all of the information that’s available. Anyone can put anything on the internet. Like Wikipedia. 

There is a significant concern about bias. The historic bias against marginalized groups is part of what’s out there in the world. That will be incorporated into AI because it’s already out there. Then you start doubling down on bias and marginalization. 

There’s a significant concern about privacy in general. Any information you’ve put out there – address, phone, DOB, etc. can be culled by AI. 

The expectation is that the use of AI will affect malpractice (E&O) insurance. One carrier has submitted guidelines warning about using AI.  

Theft, fraud, stalking, hacking, terrorism are risks

Current AI: potential automated responses in gmail, yahoo emails. Suggestions from Amazon or other websites for other products. Chat bots.

“These are not decision-making tools.” “You can optimize for the outcome of your client. These tools can’t do that.”

How Filevine is using AI:

Demands: 48 hours, not final 

AI fields: use FV prompts to extract info based on documents in FV – “help you consume massive amounts of information”

                -depo questions

                - ICD10 codes

                -what is the drafter of RPD worried about

                -depo/depo summaries

                -objection logs

                -comes with page references so you can check

                -anything that can be OCR’d can be interpreted – not handwriting, diagrams, photos yet

 AI blocks: meant to accelerate composition of documents

AI Sidebar: conversation with your data, how do perform processes in Sidebar

Immigration AI: help with forms

My Impression:

Licensed legal work is required to be done by lawyers. All of this implicates our fiduciary duties, our duty of competence, our duty of confidentiality, etc.

In terms of briefing, demands, discovery, summaries – we have all of the resources available to do this and do it easily and quickly. My gut feeling is that it’s overwhelm that could lead to relying on AI as a short cut. The biggest risk to using AI is bypassing the thinking, issue spotting and planning that differentiates good lawyers from exceptional lawyers. This is the big danger spot I see in AI. FV’s AI can draft deposition questions, for example. But it can’t take into account what the needle moving issues are in my case, how I’m going to set up a particular witnesses, what case history I’m going to emphasize for leverage, whether I have all of the medical records, etc. That’s lawyer work. That’s what makes high value cases higher value cases. And a blunder there can impact trial, as we know.

Even using google, we have the option to evaluate the source before we click on the website link. With AI (outside of your file), there is no vetting of the source and no verification of the information whatsoever. That’s a huge concern when AI is used as a short cut for briefing. We have briefing templates in Westlaw for any CA motion/opposition imaginable, and it’s all correct and up to date. For other states, Westlaw has civil litigation guides or some other resource that gives you the rules of law and all you have to do is copy and paste and insert the facts of your case. It’s not difficult or time consuming at all. I’ve done this routinely in Iowa, Georgia, Florida, New Mexico, Washington, for example.

Where I can see value in case specific AI (within your file in FV, for example) is if the lawyer already knows the file and uses AI to create a document from a file that’s been uploaded into FV, for example, and then vets what’s in the document. The issue there is I’m not sure how much time you save since you have to vet the info regardless and make sure the document is what you wanted/needed it to be. 

Here are some other relevant articles and resources:

• https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/us-judge-orders-lawyers-sign-ai-pledge-warning-they-make-stuff-up-2023-05-31/

• https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/lawyer-used-chatgpt-cite-bogus-cases-what-are-ethics-2023-05-30/

• https://www.wired.com/story/italy-ban-chatgpt-privacy-gdpr/

• https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20230505IPR84904/ai-act-a-step-closer-to-the-first-rules-on-artificial-intelligence

Making A Killing

For too long, Californians who have been harmed instead of healed by our healthcare system have faced a formidable obstacle in seeking accountability in a court of law for medical negligence. It's called MICRA, Sacramento shorthand for the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act of 1975. Over the course of four decades, MICRA has put an artificial cap of $250,000 on pain and suffering damages in cases involving medical malpractice, no matter the outcome - even death. IN all that time the MICRA limit has remained unchanged, despite decades of inflation that have reduced its economic effect by roughly 80%. Meanwhile, MICRA has yanked crucial economic decisions out of the hands of citizen juries, as they are not allowed to know of these caps during the course of the trial. It has done little to help doctors and nothing to improve patient care. Its main beneficiaries have been insurance companies. This issue of limits on damages in medical malpractice lawsuit is California's longest-running single-issue political battle.

Watch the new 2023 documentary on Apple TV+ by clicking here.

The She Said What Show

Courtney joins the She Said What Show to talk all things!

Ted Horn Memorial Award Acceptance

On January 28, 2023, Nick and Courtney accepted the Ted Horn Memorial Award at the CAALA Gala. This honors their outstanding service to the association and to the legal community. We are so proud of their work on the Fairness for Injured Patients Act and their dedication to human rights.

Courtney spoke at the event, “MICRA and laws that cap the value of life and quality of life damages are laws of inequity that not only curtail women’s rights but endanger their health.  Women are dying, unnecessarily, in America. Women take four years longer than men to be diagnosed with over 770 diseases. Women are 50% more likely to be misdiagnosed following a heart attack. Our maternal mortality rate is the highest of the developed countries. And what’s more--Black mothers die at a rate three times that of white women. These numbers don’t just reflect how women and people of color are treated in the healthcare industry, they are a direct reflection of how women are valued in the courtroom. 

But this inequity is not limited to CAPS on damages, it extends to our classrooms, our state rooms, and, still, our profession. 

This agreement with the CMA is a great beginning. The expansion of civil rights is progress. And, the work continues. In states across the country, caps designed to limit access to the courtroom and protect high donor insurance conglomerates are being introduced to legislation constantly. As we have seen geopolitically, democracy and human rights are fragile, and their protection cannot be limited to state lines or-- areas of practice. 

Our relationships, here, in this room, will be the anchor and the driving force of positive creativity and right direction in our laws, our country, and our profession. How we value and protect equity , dignity, and humanity in our laws, in our offices, will impact how we value all people in our society, now, and for the next seven generations.”

Watch acceptance speech here!

LA Hospital Sued for Racism

LOS ANGELES – The husband of a Black woman who died hours after childbirth in 2016 sued Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on Wednesday, saying she bled to death because of a culture of racism at the renowned Los Angeles hospital.

Charles Johnson IV said he discovered the disparity in care women of color receive at Cedars compared to white women during depositions in his wrongful death lawsuit that is scheduled to go to trial next week in Los Angeles Superior Court.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that my wife would be here today and be here Sunday celebrating Mother’s Day with her boys if she was a Caucasian woman,” Johnson said at a news conference outside the hospital. "The reality is that on April 12, 2016, when we walked into Cedars-Sinai hospital for what we expected to be the happiest day of our lives, the greatest risk factor that Kira Dixon Johnson faced was racism.”

Johnson died about 12 hours after having a scheduled cesarean section that was performed in 17 minutes to deliver the couple's second son, Langston.

“This is sloppy. It was butchery,” attorney Nicholas Rowley said. “It shocked everybody that we deposed, all the health care providers, even the head of (obstetrics) here, the head of labor and delivery, looked at it and said ‘No, I’ve never seen one done that fast.’”

Despite signs she was bleeding internally and over the desperate pleas of her husband, Kira Johnson languished for hours without being readmitted to the operating room until it was too late, the civil rights lawsuit said.

At one point, a nurse told Charles Johnson that his wife wasn't a priority, according to the lawsuit.

She died from internal bleeding — nearly 90% of her blood was later found in her stomach, Rowley said. Her bladder had been lacerated and she hadn’t been sutured properly.

The hospital, which has fought the malpractice lawsuit, said in a statement that it was founded on principles of diversity and health care for all and it rejected “any mischaracterization of our culture and values.”

“We are actively working to eradicate unconscious bias in health care and advance equity in health care more broadly,” the statement said. “We commend Mr. Johnson for the attention he has brought to the important issue of racial disparities in maternal outcomes.”

Kira Johnson's death led her husband on a crusade to advocate for reducing maternal mortality, which is especially high for Black women.

Before the pandemic, which increased deaths of women of color during childbirth, Black women died at 2.5 times the rate of white women, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

Charles Johnson has testified before Congress and at the state Capitol in Sacramento in support of a variety of bills, including a 2019 state law that requires doctors and nurses to identify implicit bias at work, and a recent bill that would lift the cap on medical malpractice awards.

Johnson would not benefit from a change in the malpractice law that currently caps awards at $250,000. The case is scheduled to go to trial May 11, though recent court filings indicated the two sides were close to reaching a settlement.

The civil rights case would give Johnson another avenue to collect damages and hold Cedars-Sinai accountable. He's also seeking an injunction that would require the hospital to make changes to protect mothers and women of color.

But proving a civil rights violation in health care is difficult because most laws require showing discrimination was intentional, said Brietta Clark, a professor at Loyola Law School.

“Compared to when civil rights laws were enacted, a lot of the kind of unequal treatment that we see in health care today does not seem to be explicit,” Clark said. “It does not seem to be conscious.”

A judge had rejected Johnson's effort to change the malpractice case to add the civil rights action, partly because deposition excerpts did not show the hospital racially discriminated in the treatment it provided.

Dr. Kimberly Gregory, an obstetrician and gynecologist at the hospital, testified that she lives with “structural racism” every day and it prevents Black patients from receiving the same care as whites, according to court papers. She also said Kira Johnson should have gone back to the operating room sooner.

Dr. Sarah Kilpatrick, chair of the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department, testified that she told Charles Johnson: “I’m sorry. We failed your family. ... This shouldn’t have happened.”

Angelique Washington, a Black surgical technologist, said “patient safety was out the door” when Kira Johnson came into the operating room.

Washington, who has more than 30 years of experience, said she routinely witnessed different treatment of Black women but was afraid to speak up.

“When I see my Black ... patients come in, I say an extra prayer,” Washington said. “I say a silent prayer that all goes well. Because you do have racism very much so in the operating room.”

Clark said the evidence identified by the judge as weak were more general statements and not specifically about discrimination by the provider. She said the key thing for Johnson's legal team will be to show a pattern of discrimination.

Rowley said the effort to amend the case was a long shot. He has since gathered other evidence from additional depositions and will be able to seek data — such as the number of Black women that have died at Cedars — to support his claim in the new lawsuit.

“Kira died because she's Black,” he said. “Women of color don't get the same treatment as white women. That's a fact.” 

Read more here.

The Maternal Health Care Crisis

Congratulations to Charles Johnson, who was the advocate for the Fairness for Injured Patients Act and is a relentless and brilliant advocate for womens’ maternal health in America. He is moving the needle for maternal health.

USA women are dying unnecessarily from childbirth. We have one of the worst maternal mortality rates in the developed world; black women die three times the rate as white.

Equity in healthcare is a human right.

Read more here.

$275M verdict for toxic exposures at Monroe school, adding to swelling cost

Full story here.

The Seattle Times

By Taylor Blatchford Seattle Times engagement reporter

Ten students and parents who say they suffered serious neurological injuries from chemical exposure at a Monroe school have been awarded $275 million by a King County jury.

The lawsuit against Bayer Pharmaceuticals — which owns chemical giant Monsanto, the manufacturer of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs — is the fourth to result in a multimillion-dollar verdict. The first three resulted in jury verdicts of $268 million distributed to 14 plaintiffs. One lawsuit is ongoing and 16 more lawsuits are awaiting trial.

In all, more than 200 students, parents and teachers from the Sky Valley Education Center, an alternative school in Snohomish County, have sued Monsanto over environmental contamination at the school.

They claim the Monroe School District knew as early as 2014 that PCBs were found on the campus, but, despite cleanup efforts, toxins were still being found into 2019.

A Seattle Times and ProPublica investigation this year found that the district was slow to respond to environmental hazards even while publicly reassuring staff, students and their parents that the school was safe.

Read the rest of the story here.

Rage for Justice

A huge congratulations to Nick and Courtney on their 2022 Lifetime Legal Achievement Award from Consumer Watchdog.

Nick and Courtney accept the Lifetime Legal Achievement Award - Watch here

Charles Johnson speaks at Rage for Justice

A Note from Consumer Watchdog

Consumer Watchdog Inside Insight

_________________________

In This Edition

MICRA LAW REVAMPED - EXCLUSIVE VIDEO

SEE FILM DOCUMENTING MICRA FIGHT AT LA FILM FESTIVAL JUNE 10th

STATE REGULATORS OPEN INVESTIGATION INTO INSURANCE CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS TO RICARDO LARA

MEDICAL BOARD REFORM UNPRECEDENTED NEWSPAPER ENDORSEMENTS FOR INSURANCE COMMISSIONER CANDIDATE MARC LEVINE

MICRA LAW REVAMPED
EXCLUSIVE VIDEO

It’s official. The odious 1975 MICRA law is no more. In a ceremony in Sacramento, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the revamped MICRA law (AB-35) that will correct nearly five decades of injustice for California victims and families harmed by medical malpractice. I first began fighting for MICRA reform 28-years ago when I met Scott Olsen and his then-two-year-old son Steven who was left permanently disabled by medical negligence. It has been a long journey, but we can now celebrate a positive result that many of us were afraid we would never see. We brought five survivors of medical malpractice to the ceremony, and it was emotional for all of us. Here is an exclusive video of the historic signing ceremony, which was closed to the media, so you can see Gavin Newsom’s comments on the deal. The new MICRA law will go into effect on January 1, 2023 and will:
Increase the cap to $500,000 for wrongful death cases and $350,000 for injury cases starting January 1st..Raise the cap in increments every year for ten years, until it reaches $1 million for wrongful death cases and $750,000 for injury cases in 2033.Allow for up to three separate caps in cases when multiple providers and institutions are responsible. Starting next year, the maximum cap could be $1.5 million for wrongful death cases, and $1.05 million for injury cases. By 2033 it will be a maximum $3 million for wrongful death and $2.25 million for injury cases.Increase the cap by 2% every year starting in 2034.Raise the contingency fee and base it upon whether the recovery is a settlement or a judgment.I am confident that more trial attorneys will now be able to litigate these expensive and challenging cases and not turn away these victims because of the prohibitive costs involved.

SEE FILM DOCUMENTING MICRA FIGHT AT LA FILM FESTIVAL JUNE 10th

Part of the successful strategy to increase the MICRA limits was the making of a documentary film that showed the damage to families and the politics that led to the cap being kept in place for 47 years. The film was executive produced by Nick Rowley. We are excited to announce that the film, MAKING A KILLING, will be premiering at the largest Los Angeles indie festival, Dances With Films, at the Chinese Mann Cineplex Theater (upstairs in the Hollywood/Highland complex) on Friday, June 10th at 7PM! You can watch the trailer here and buy tickets for the screening on June 10th here. The film features survivors Annette Ramirez, Charles Johnson and Scott and Steven Olsen. It has remarkable revelations of remorse by former MICRA author Barry Keene.

STATE REGULATORS OPEN INVESTIGATION INTO INSURANCE CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS TO RICARDO LARA

A complaint filed by Consumer Watchdog has resulted in the Enforcement Division of the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) announcing they will begin an investigation into the funneling of illegal campaign contributions made by the insurance industry to Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara’s re-election campaign. The complaint alleges that contributions to Lara from seven insurance companies did not disclose the source of the donations, violating state prohibitions against money laundering and disclosure of earmarked contributions. Read the complaint and a news article on the case.

MEDICAL BOARD REFORM

A long-sought bill to reform the California Medical Board by giving public members the majority vote on the Board will not happen in 2022. The Medical Board holds negligent doctors accountable for their actions. The bill got out of committee but died on the Assembly floor where it didn’t get a vote because of last-minute opposition from the California Medical Association who made defeating the bill a priority. This was disappointing news, but not unexpected. Consumer Watchdog will continue to work to reform the Medical Board, an important action that must be taken to hold negligent doctors accountable.

UNPRECEDENTED NEWSPAPER ENDORSEMENTS FOR INSURANCE COMMISSIONER CANDIDATE MARC LEVINE

With the San Diego Union Tribune and Fresno Bee joining the L.A. Times, Sacramento Bee, San Jose Mercury News and San Francisco Chronicle, Assembly member Marc Levine has received an unprecedented endorsement clean sweep of every major California newspaper editorial board. I can never remember a challenger for statewide office receiving the endorsements of every major state newspaper. The race between Levine and Lara is on next week’s Primary Election ballot and the top-two vote-getters will move on to the General Election in November. Remember, Insurance Commissioner is the most critical office in Sacramento for trial lawyers. He is the one who sets insurance rates. Here are some direct excerpts from the newspaper endorsement-editorials for Levine:

L.A. TIMES (April 28, 2022) “Ricardo Lara’s first year as California insurance commissioner — the elected office charged with regulating the state’s $310-billion insurance industry — was an ethical disaster. In March 2019, Lara, a Democrat, held a lunch meeting with insurance company executives who had business pending before his department, for the purpose, records showed, of building a relationship that would benefit his reelection campaign. In April, he accepted more than $50,000 in campaign donations from insurance industry representatives and their spouses, including from people with ties to the company at the lunch meeting the month before. In June, Lara overruled decisions his department had previously made in ways that benefited the company. None of this is illegal. But it looks horrible for someone whose job is to protect consumers from being overcharged by insurance companies. Insurance commissioners have enormous power to impact the industry by approving or rejecting rate increases and investigating insurance fraud. To avoid the perception that money can buy favorable treatment, most of California’s past insurance commissioners have shunned campaign donations from the industry. Lara, too, pledged not to take insurance money when he ran in 2018. After news broke that he’d taken the donations, Lara apologized and returned the money. But Lara has also had other ethical lapses during a dozen years in public office, creating a troubling pattern. Levine stands out from the pack as the candidate who will best look out for consumers and the planet.”

SAN DIEGO UNION TRIBUNE (MAY 27, 2022) “For insurance commissioner, we endorse San Rafael Assemblymember Marc Levine over fellow Democrat Ricardo Lara, the incumbent. Lara is likely to be one of two candidates to make the Nov. 8 runoff election, but he shouldn’t be re-elected. He doesn’t deserve a new term. Scandal has dogged him from his days in the Legislature, and he’s only become more synonymous with it while serving in a role requiring ethical stewardship to ensure insurance companies treat all Californians fairly. That role gets trickier all the time with the climate emergency meaning more wildfires threatening homes.”

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE (May 1, 2022) “Levine is running on a platform of good governance…he has vowed to mandate more transparency regarding insurance company fossil fuel investments. Lara’s got to go. Levine deserves your vote. We enthusiastically endorse his candidacy.”

SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS (April 28, 2022) “California needs consumer protection, not partying, dining, and cozying up with industry lobbyists and executives. California needs a new insurance commissioner—one that voters can feel confident represents their interests. Voters in the June 7 primary should back Assemblyman Marc Levine to head the department of 1,400 employees responsible for overseeing health, auto and homeowner insurance rates—for regulating companies that collect premiums annually in California. What the state needs is an insurance commissioner willing to campaign and willing to work hard to protect consumers and ensure healthy industry competition and solvency. Levine is the only candidate who meets those criteria. Californians should back him in the June 7 election.

I want to remind you that Consumer Watchdog does not endorse candidates for office, but we continue to hold the elected insurance commissioner accountable to the public and its ethical expectations. --Jamie

The Dobbs Decision

The Dobbs Decision

By Courtney Rowley

History Made Against MICRA

History was made this week with a landmark decision to revise the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act (MICRA) from 1975. We could not be prouder of Nick and Courtney as they funded the effort to organize voter signatures to place the measure on the ballot and spent countless hours advocating and lobbying. This agreement is a huge win for those who have been subject to medical malpractice in California. Patients will finally be able to seek justice in cases.

Congratulations on this success, we know it was an uphill battle!

Assembly Bill 35 Summary: How to update MICRA

CAALA press release can be read here.

LA Times article can be read here.

Legal Beagle: Damages Evolving

Nick and I with Daniel Bidegaray joined Jonathan from Legal Beagle to talk about Loss of Consortium.

Nick and I tried a case in Bakersfield back in September of 2021 and obtained a multi-million dollar verdict for Loss of Consortium. Nick goes as far as to do an actual role play of how you talk to potential jurors during Voir Dire (jury selection) about a Loss of Consortium claim during the podcast.

Listen here.

Watch here.

Enjoy!