In the News

All but one member of the new Texas Commission on Judicial Selection indicated at the group’s first meeting Thursday that they believe partisanship is problematic in the state’s method of selecting judges.

Facebook has started removing misleading ads about an HIV prevention medication after backlash from LGBTQ activists and politicians. The ads in question were purchased by pages from personal injury lawyers and linked drugs designed to stop the spread of HIV, like Truvada and PrEP, with bone and kidney damage. The ads urged users to join a lawsuit against the drug’s manufacturer. LGBTQ advocates say the ads’ claims are false.

Odds are good you don’t know Judge Dimple. But odds are equally good you’ve seen her roadside campaign signs among those cropping up as the landscape morphs from festive holiday decorations to highway-unbeautifying political signage. The campaign sign business is simple: catchy name, catchy typeface, catchy catchphrase, anything that can catch the eye in the fleeting glimpse of a passerby.

Behind the surge in lawsuits is a little-known, sophisticated legal ecosystem that includes marketing firms that find potential clients, financiers who bankroll law firms, doctors who review medical records, scientists who analyze medical literature and the lawyers who bring the cases to court. Individual plaintiffs can become commodities that are bought and sold by marketers, with prices based on demand. The more lawsuits that get filed, the more pressure companies face to settle.

Tort lawyers often use the threat of jackpot verdicts to extort settlements from business targets. But when does a shakedown become criminal extortion? Last week the federal government charged Timothy Litzenburg for allegedly crossing that legal line.

“While lawsuits over lip balm, chocolate or ice cream are funny, frivolous lawsuits are a serious problem that affect everyone,” said Institute for Legal Reform Chief Operating Officer Harold Kim. “A recent study found that the U.S. spends $429 billion on civil lawsuits—or more than $3,000 per household. That’s no laughing matter.”

Louisiana unfortunately is a perpetual fixture on the American Tort Reform Foundation’s “Judicial Hellholes” list, which identifies those states with civil justice systems that allow lawsuit abuse to flourish. In the newly released 2019-2020 report, Louisiana was ranked the fourth-worst judicial hellhole in the country, rising a spot from last year’s No. 5 ranking.

“The spawn of litigation brought by plaintiffs law firms representing counties, cities and tribes in the opioid litigation is really the single greatest threat to attorneys general that we have seen in this country,” Connell said. “By alleging the same causes of action and the same claims that are being brought by attorneys general on behalf of entire states, we’re now seeing something close to 35,000 lawsuits all across the country in different state and federal courts.”

In a critically worded 55-page decision that wasn’t exactly a surprise and at one point referred to the case as “an ill-conceived initiative of the Office of the Attorney General,” Supreme Court Judge Barry Ostrager said New York failed to prove ExxonMobil misled investors about the impact of climate change even under the state’s extraordinarily loose Martin Act, which doesn’t require proof a company acted with bad intent or that investors relied on what the company said.

More than 500 cities and counties opted out of the unprecedented “negotiation class” proposed by plaintiff lawyers to settle sprawling opioid litigation, leaving 98% of the 34,458 U.S. cities and counties technically still in the class.