In the News

California officials who are suing large energy companies are telling two contradictory stories while taking part in a targeted effort featuring state attorneys general, private lawyers and Rockefeller money, a Texas judge has found.

‘Only God makes a perfect hip,” trial lawyer Mark Lanier once observed, which must be news to millions of patients who’ve needed a hip replacement. But Mr. Lanier’s specialty is suing over those replacements, and this week he was slapped down for distortions in court.

(Reuters) – Mark Lanier of the Lanier Law Firm is one of the most successful trial lawyers in the country. Trained as a pastor, he has an uncanny rapport with jurors, who have bestowed upon him enormous verdicts: $253 million against Merck in a 2005 Vioxx trial; $6 billion (yes, billion) against Takeda in a 2014 trial over the diabetes drug Actos; $502 million against Johnson & Johnson and DePuy in a 2016 trial over metal-on-metal hip implants.

Three North Dakota farmers filed a class action Tuesday against the Texas plaintiffs’ firm Watts Guerra, alleging that Watts and a dozen co-counsel duped nearly 60,000 farmers into signing 40 percent contingency fee agreements in nationwide litigation against the agricultural company Syngenta, then cut secret deals to preserve the contingency fees by excluding Watts clients from state and federal class actions against the company.

The Ninth Circuit yesterday said Naruto the monkey cannot sue a photographer for copyright infringement, bringing the years long “monkey selfie” case to a close.

Legal vultures are descending on the estate of a dead Brooklyn resident — demanding $2.1 million as repayment for the $21,300 she took out in cash advances on an old lawsuit, her family says.

Self-driving cars, machines that teach themselves how to operate and home digital assistants that can enter into legally binding contracts are all either on the market now or soon will be. So the next question is: Whom do you sue when they run amok?

In a ruling made on March 30, the U.S. District Court Northern District of California dismissed the case of a woman who alleged Diet Dr Pepper’s advertising made her believe the soft drink would help consumers lose weight.

If a 20-year old court record, which may or may not be an actual court record, no longer exists, how can jurisdiction exist – is the question justices raised in an asbestos case that’s even caught the attention of Texas’ chief lawyer.

A woman who says she was tricked into thinking lollipops are healthy will be able to continue her lawsuit in a California court, as the defendant that has labeled the case as “nonsensical” attacks the class action lawyers who filed it.