Earlier this week I attended the Mass Tort Litigation Conference in my home base of Philadelphia; this is the annual conference chaired by former Judge Marina Corodemus, who was the Mass Torts Judge in NJ for several years.

Other faculty included Judge Lee Rosenthal, Judge Ed Kinkeade, and Judge David Katz; plaintiff’s lawyers such as Sol Weiss and Chris Seeger; and various members of the defense mass tort bar. It was great to see old colleagues and meet some new folks.

The program followed a hypothetical mass tort, involving an allegedly defective medical device, through government investigations, Daubert/Frye issues, MDL and other coordinations, through to settlements. Of course, Shook Hardy has tons of experience with all aspects of medical device litigation.

Anyway, among the interesting tidbits: beware of the growing use by plaintiffs of “medical ethicists” to condemn defendant’s conduct as not only negligent but unethical and evil; and plaintiff’s use of “mind-reading” experts who profess to divine the intent of the defendant corporation by reading between the lines of the emails and other discovered documents. We have posted on this before.

Plaintiff’s counsel talked a bit about their mass tort intake process and the “screening” they use on potential new cases.  One interesting observation was the great level of concern expressed over the issue of product identification, and how it can be exacerbated by multiple defendant manufacturers, multiple versions or designs in play, and when the nature of the product somehow makes easy identification impossible.

The e-discovery panel (can’t have a seminar without one) talked about the draft principles in discovery across borders, out for comment from Sedona Working Group 6.  Readers with thoughts should weigh in.