Taishan Indicates It Will Pay

Earlier this month at the monthly status conference for the Chinese Drywall MDL in New Orleans, representatives of Taishan Gypsum Company indicated to the Court that they would pay a judgment against the Chinese entity. The judgment dates to 2010, when the Court ruled that Taishan was liable for $2.6 million to fix the homes of the seven Virginia families. The seven families were plaintiffs in a bellwether case.

Taishan has never paid the judgment. While another Chinese drywall manufacturer owned by Knauf paid to remediate homes, Taishan filed multiple appeals and challenged the jurisdiction of the MDL Court. After the Fifth Circuit denied all of Taishan’s appeals, the company dismissed its lawyers and stopped showing up in court.

Last summer, U.S. District Judge Eldon E. Fallon, the presiding MDL judge, found Taishan in civil and criminal contempt of court, and barred the company, and its parent corporations, from doing business in the United States.

At the monthly status conference, when Judge Fallon was expected to hand down a judgment for the entire class of Taishan homeowners (potentially more than $1 billion in damages estimated by the amount paid out by Knauf) the company suddenly reappeared, along with a new set of lawyers from Alston & Bird.

It is estimated that about 4,000 houses nationwide were built with Taishan’s toxic drywall. The board emitts sulfur gases that corrode metal wiring and pipes, short-circuit electronics and can lead to numerous respiratory ailments.

Could this about-face signal Taishan wants to come to the table and fix the thousands of homes affected by its product? Could this be the beginning of the end for victims of Taishan drywall? I hope so, but it is too early to tell.

$10M Settlement Announcement for Target Data Breach Case

Target and lawyers for plaintiffs whose clients’ personal information was stolen in a 2013 major data breach have agreed on a $10 million settlement.

A class-action suit was pending in United States District Court in Minneapolis, where Target is headquartered. Both sides asked the court to approve Target's offer, which the two sides agreed to last week. Target said as many as 40 million credit and debit card accounts may have been affected by the breach, which occurred between November 27 and December 15, 2013, at the height of the holiday shopping season. See my previous blog posts on the story and lawsuit.

The proposed settlement would cap any award at $10,000 per claimant. It would also include Target appointing a chief information security officer to oversee information security and to train employees in securing costumers' personally identifiable information. Judge Paul Magnuson has reportedly signed off on the preliminary settlement agreement.

In a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company estimated it has incurred $252 million of cumulative data breach-related expenses as of Jan. 1, 2015. This was partially offset by $90 million of expected insurance recoveries.

Zimmer Defendants Picks For Bellwhether Trial

The Zimmer NexGen Knee MDL seems to finally be making some headway. Just yesterday, the defendants filed with the Court their choices for bellwhether trials. Because of disagreements between the parties, the earlier choices were disregarded. The list of choices are below:

           

            Gloria Ebarb v. Zimmer, Inc., et al., Case No. 1:13-cv-02679

            Original District: Western District of Arkansas

            Plaintiff’s Counsel: Sean T. Keith – Keith, Miller, Butler, Schneider &

            Pawlik, PLLC; Randi Kassan – Sanders Viener Grossman, LLP

            Mark Stephen Dobrzynski & Laura Left Dobrzynski, by Trustee Richard M.

            Fogel v. Zimmer, Inc., et al., Case No. 1:11-cv-07847

            Original District: Northern District of Illinois

            Plaintiff’s Counsel: Don K. Ledgard – Capretz & Associates;

            Paul J. Fina – Fina & Hunter

            Richard Lawrence v. Zimmer, Inc., et al., Case No. 1:12-cv-05201

            Original District: District of Minnesota

            Plaintiff’s Counsel: Stacy K. Hauer and Timothy Becker – Johnson

            Becker, PLLC; Randi Kassan – Sanders Viener Grossman, LLP

These plaintiffs have until the end of the month to inform the Court if they will proceed to trial. It is not clear the exact type of implant, injuries, and other case specific information involved in the defendants’ choices. One would hope that they are representative of the remaining filed cases in the MDL in order to help the parties evaluate their respective positions.