Hanzo will present a webinar on Dec. 19, 2018, at 1:30 pm EST discussing common challenges and helpful solutions for capturing the dynamic elements of social media data.

The company says social media is a valuable way to communicate with customers, but many heavily regulated financial firms shy away from its use, fearing that regulatory compliance will be too difficult.

Organizations can also find social media to be critical in ediscovery because it offers a rare window into people’s daily thoughts and activities, even after those people have become embroiled in litigation.

Moderator Evan Gumz, senior account executive from Hanzo ,will be joined by panelists Steve Tanner, social nedia & online communities lead from Relativity, and Michael Quartararo, managing director of eDPM Advisory Services to discuss:

• How organizations use social media in the course of their business and the associated risk
• Challenges surrounding compliance and eDiscovery collections
• What is driving compliance and ediscovery practitioners toward superior native-format collections
• And more.

Register for the webinar.

Image by Kārlis Dambrāns

A jury trial in Qualcomm’s wide-ranging legal war with Apple has been set to begin April 15 in San Diego federal court, with a settlement looking unlikely at this point, reports The San Diego Union-Tribune.

U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel scheduled the trial at hearing Friday. Qualcomm had sought to begin the trial in February, but Curiel said the April date was needed to accommodate the court’s schedule.

Qualcomm Chief Executive Steve Mollenkopf had previously told CNBC’s Jim Cramer that the San Diego cellular technology firm was “on the doorstep of finding a resolution” to the dispute with Apple, according to Union-Tribune reporter Mike Freeman.

But Apple attorney William Isaacson told Curiel on Friday that a settlement wasn’t in the cards.

Read the San Diego Union-Tribune article.

Reuters is reporting that a U.S. judge in California has granted preliminary approval to a $48 million settlement for investors who said Volkswagen AG made false and misleading statements over its excess diesel emissions.

Reuters reporter explains:

Lawyers for the investors, who include police and other municipal pension funds, had estimated that the maximum they could have recovered was $147 million. But Judge Charles Breyer said the settlement agreed in August appeared “fair, adequate and reasonable.”

The German automaker admitted in September 2015 to secretly installing software in nearly 500,000 U.S. cars to cheat government exhaust emissions tests, writes Reuters reporter David Shepardson.

Read the Reuters article.

The Texas Supreme Court has held that the discovery rule delayed the running of the statute of limitations on behalf of the holder of a recorded right of first refusal to purchase mineral interests, reports the Energy & the Law blog of Gray Reed & McGraw.

Gray Reed partner Charles Sartain explains: “The trustees sued the Tregellases for buying the minerals without allowing the Trust to exercise its ROFR, contending that a contract was formed when they sued more than four years after the Tregellases’ purchase; the suit was their acceptance of the right to purchase the minerals, they said.”

The appellate court held that the trust suffered an injury when the minerals were sold, but the discovery rule delayed limitations.

Read the article.

The family of a man who died from severe burns he suffered in 2015 while working at a paper plant in North Charleston has settled the wrongful death suit filed in his case after jury selection in the U.S. District Court in South Carolina.

Terms of the settlement, filed in U.S. District Court Judge David C. Norton’s court, are confidential.

According to a release from the firms representing the plaintiffs, Brian Allen, 43, of Summerville, was on a lift at the plant performing welding work above several tanks of solution. The tanks should have contained non-flammable sodium hydrosulfide used in paper manufacturing. However, later analysis by the plaintiffs’ experts would show one or more of the tanks actually contained gasoline, which ignited and severely burned Allen. He suffered for eight months before succumbing to his injuries.

Allen’s family filed suit against the companies that supplied the sodium hydrosulfide and the companies that transported it. The paper manufacturer was not a defendant in the case.

“An intense three-year litigation battle can be very difficult emotionally for a family which has already experienced a traumatic workplace injury and death,”  said James E. Payne,  partner at Provost Umphrey, who represented Kristie Allen, Allen’s widow. “This resolution will allow Kristie and the rest of the family to put the litigation behind them and try to focus on the positive memories of Brian as best as they can.”

The case required the taking of over 40 depositions and the production of over 45,000 pages of documents. There were more than 200 exhibits.

“Kristie Allen and the Allen family suffered a great loss,” said Provost Umphrey attorney Matthew Matheny, who also represented Mrs. Allen. “We are very pleased that the settlement will financially serve Mrs. Allen and her family for many years to come. After a long and contentious litigation, a degree of justice has been served.”

“To my knowledge, this was the largest post-jury selection settlement of a plaintiff’s wrongful death and survival action in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina in recent memory. I was honored to serve as lead local counsel on behalf of the Allen family,” said Motley Rice LLC lawyer Marlon Kimpson who along with attorney W. Taylor Lacy also represented Mrs. Allen.

TechCrunch reports that Facebook has recruited Kate Patchen, a veteran of the U.S. Department of Justice who led its antitrust office in Silicon Valley, to be a director and associate general counsel of litigation.

Patchen spent 16 years at the DoJ, where she began as a trial attorney before becoming an assistant chief in the antitrust division in 2014, and two years later she was made chief.

TechCrunch reporter Natasha Lomas writes that Patchen takes up her post amid ongoing scandals and reputation crises for her new employer, joining Facebook this month, according to her LinkedIn profile.

“Patchen, meanwhile, joins Facebook at the same time as some long-serving veterans are headed out the door — including public policy chief Elliot Schrage,” according to Lomas.

Read the TechCrunch article.

Lenovo Group Ltd. can move ahead with an $8.3 million settlement to end a class action that its ad software exposed customer laptops to performance, privacy, and security problems, reports Bloomberg Law.

The federal court’s initial approval of the settlement comes four months after Lenovo and the consumer class filed with the court to end the spyware action. The SuperFish software, which Lenovo began installing in 2014, could access customer Social Security numbers, financial data, and sensitive heath information, the court said.

“Lenovo is set to pay $7.3 million to the settlement fund, and SuperFish will kick in another $1 million from a prior deal with consumers over the spyware issue,” according to Bloomberg’s Daniel R. Stoller.

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

Corporate counsel report a decrease in the number of lawsuits against their companies over the last year, but they face more regulatory proceedings and arbitrations in navigating increased cyber risk, data protection and tax issues.

Norton Rose Fulbright’s 2018 Litigation Trends Annual Survey polled 365 senior corporate counsel representing US-based organizations on disputes-related issues and concerns.

Two thirds of respondents report feeling more exposed in 2018 to cybersecurity and data protection disputes. The survey also found that the growing international nature of many business operations has caused a spike in conflicts related to countries’ differing discovery and data protection laws and regulations.

See the survey results.

Thousands of legal professionals are expected to participate in E-Discovery Day, scheduled for Dec. 4, 2018, to learn more about e-discovery and the vital role it plays within the legal process.

Exterro, one of the E-Discovery Day supporters, says this one-day industry-wide, vendor-neutral celebration, will feature an all-star lineup of complimentary in-person events and online webcasts. 34 leading legal organizations are proud to support E-Discovery Day and partnered together to host all events free of charge.

The event will include:

• 13 educational webcasts with e-discovery experts (e.g. federal judges, e-discovery managers, in-house attorneys and more)
• 7 in-person networking events located across the country

Get details or sign-up for an event.

Texas-based litigation boutique Hicks Thomas LLP announced that Houston appellate specialist and trial lawyer J. Stephen Barrick has been named a partner in the firm.

Barrick concentrates his practice on civil appeals in state and federal courts. The substantive area of his appellate practice includes contracts, oil and gas, intellectual property, insurance coverage, and catastrophic personal injuries. He has been listed as in the Texas Super Lawyers rating guide every year since 2012, is board certified in civil appellate law, and serves as the firm’s lead appellate lawyer.

He is Board Certified in Civil Appellate Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization.

Read more about the announcement.

A Louisiana appellate court has added to the relatively sparse body of appellate rulings in pipeline expropriation matters with an unpublished opinion affirming that landowners whose property is expropriated must prove their entitlement to severance damages to a “legal certainty.”

Writing in the Liskow & Lewis Energy Law Blog, Laura Springer Brown discusses the case of  Enterprise Products Operating, LLC, v. Southwood Terminal, L.L.C.

In its ruling, the court affirmed a two-part test for severance damages: The landowner must prove a diminution in value, “and only then could the jury continue on to the issue of the amount of damages.”

Read the article.

If Pacific Gas and Electric Company is found liable for the devastating California fires now burning, the company’s customers could be on the hook to pay the bill, or even lead to a PG&E bankruptcy, according to The New York Times.

“Many fires in recent years have been caused by downed power lines serving California’s utilities. State officials have determined that electrical equipment owned by PG&E, including power lines and poles, was responsible for at least 17 of 21 major fires in Northern California last fall. In eight of those cases, they referred the findings to prosecutors over possible violations of state law,” write Times reporters Ivan Penn and Peter Eavis.

Some victims of the latest fires have sued PG&E, alleging negligence and health and safety code violations by the utility company.

Read the NY Times article.

The International Association of Defense Counsel (IADC), an invitation-only global legal organization for attorneys who represent corporate and insurance interests, has published its fourth quarter 2018 Defense Counsel Journal (DCJ) with articles on current trends in the practice of law.

The current DCJ issue’s articles explore asbestos tort reform on the state level, the growth of punitive damages in Anglo-Canadian contract law, and legal hurdles that manufacturers face when launching products in the United States.

In a release, the organization, said the DCJ is a quarterly forum for topical and scholarly writings on the law, including its development and reform, as well as on the practice of law in general. DCJ articles are written by members of the IADC, which is a 2,500-member, invitation-only, worldwide organization that serves its members and their clients, as well as the civil justice system and the legal profession.

The DCJ is available for free and without a subscription via the IADC’s website.

The current DCJ issue is the first to be overseen by new editor and former IADC board member Kenneth R. Meyer, a partner in the products liability practice group at McCarter & English, LLP, in Newark, N.J. The issue also is the first under the leadership of new IADC president Craig A. Thompson, a partner at Venable LLP.

Following are brief summaries of key articles included in the fourth quarter 2018 issue of the DCJ:

— “The More Things Change: Bankruptcy Trust Reform and the Status Quo in Asbestos Litigation” – The article debunks plaintiffs’ lawyers’ arguments that trust transparency reforms would delay litigation, deny compensation to the most sympathetic of plaintiffs, and divest plaintiffs of their traditional control over the trust and tort systems. The authors explain how trust transparency reforms have not delayed litigation and have, in fact, accelerated compensation from the asbestos trusts. The article also describes that, where reforms have been enacted, they have achieved their purpose of fostering communication within the two-tiered system of asbestos compensation so that juries can properly account for all of a plaintiff’s exposures to asbestos.

— “Moving Beyond Uberrima Fides? The General Duty of Honesty in Contractual Performance and Punitive Damage Awards in Anglo-Canadian Contract Law” – The article’s authors suggest that the characterization of punitive damages as “the bane of corporate defendants” has perhaps never been more true under Anglo-Canadian contract law. This article demonstrates that while punitive damages for pure breach of contract are undoubtedly exceptional remedies at common law, they are generally larger and more common than ever before, which marks an extraordinary development in Anglo-Canadian contract law considering that only 30 years ago punitive damages were barred for pure breach of contract.

— “Entering the U.S. Market: Legal Hurdles That Manufacturers Must Overcome” – Investigates the life cycle of a product’s development and marketing and provides insight into some of the most common legal hurdles – especially consumer protection lawsuits – faced by manufacturers entering the U.S. market.

A post on the website of Pepper Hamilton describes a North Carolina case that involved non-signatories to a construction contract attempting to avoid the contract’s arbitration claim.

When the building’s current owner asserted various claims against the original owner, architect and general and subcontractors, the general contractor moved to have the suit dismissed on the ground that they were subject to arbitration. Plaintiffs argued that the arbitration clauses were not binding on them because the contracts that contained them were not assigned to plaintiffs when they purchased.

“The court held that the plaintiffs’ argument could not be squared with the language of the Contractor Warranty. On its face, the Contractor Warranty stated that [the general contractor] performed all work ‘in accord with the Contract Documents.’ This express reference to [the contractor’s] construction contract put the plaintiffs on notice of the contract’s existence,” explains the article’s author, Jane Fox Lehman.

Read the article.

Jurors have returned a $4.8 million verdict against Greenville, Pennsylvania-based Werner Co., finding the ladder company liable for the faulty design and marketing of an aluminum ladder that collapsed, permanently injuring a Lewisville, Texas man.

According to a release from Androvett Legal Media & Marketing, the jury in Denton County District Court determined that the company knew of problems with the Werner Model 354 Type II ladder and was negligent in not warning consumers of the risks when using it. The jury deliberated for a day and a half before reaching its verdict, awarding approximately $1.2 million for past damages and $3.6 million for future damages to John DeVallee.

“In mediation, Werner’s initial offer was $150,000,” said Joe Fisher, partner at Beaumont-based Provost Umphrey L.L.P., who represented DeVallee. “They said they would not offer any more because they’ve won 60-plus trials in a row.”

DeVallee, 46, was severely injured in 2011 after one of the ladder legs bent inward – a known falling hazard associated with this type of ladder. The fall led to crushing injuries to DeVallee’s arm and wrist and left him without use of his dominant hand for the rest of his life.

Fisher selected the jury and then turned over the rest of the case to fellow Provost Umphrey partner Edward Fisher and attorney Brian Zimmerman of Zimmerman, Axelrad, Meyer, Stern & Wise, P.C. David L. Cook of Harris Cook LLP was also part of the trial team and was instrumental in securing the verdict.

“In essence, the jury saw that Werner – through its negligence – pretty much cut off John’s dominant hand,” said Edward Fisher. “That’s a lifetime injury that will require continued medical care and treatment and that, unfortunately, cannot be repaired. No one should have to deal with something such as that simply because they were working on a four-foot tall step ladder.”

The case is J. Devallee v. Werner Co., Case No. 2011-40709-362 in the 442nd District Court of Denton County.

Image by Montgomery County Planning Commission

The Oklahoman reports that jurors wanted to send a message to health insurer Aetna after hearing how the company’s overworked doctors denied an Oklahoma cancer patient’s claim for coverage for proton beam therapy.

Reporter Nolan Clay writes that jurors awarded $25.5 million to the patient’s estate and to her husband, a retired Oklahoma City firefighter, in the bad-faith case against the company.

The patient, Orrana Cunningham, died in 2015 from a viral outbreak after getting treatment for the tumor in her head and returning home. She was 54.

Read the Oklahoman article.

Bloomberg Law reports that class counsel will take home $300 million from settlements over an alleged conspiracy among banks to fix prices in the foreign exchange market.

The court issued the order on Thursday, Nov. 8.

The settlement, approved in August with banks that include Bank of America, JP Morgan and Citibank, is the third largest antitrust class action settlement in history, according to plaintiffs, writes Bloomberg reporter Perry Cooper.

Read the Bloomberg article.

Houston-based construction and business litigation firm West Mermis, PLLC, has earned national recognition among the Best Law Firms in the country by U.S. News & World Report and The Best Lawyers in America.

The firm was selected to the 2019 list of construction litigation firms recognized nationally, and in the Houston metro area, West Mermis is ranked in the top tier of such law firms.

The U.S. News – Best Lawyers selection process involves a lawyer survey and feedback from clients on a firm’s expertise, responsiveness and cost-effectiveness along with other questions.

Read details about the award.

The ABA Journal reports that a $30 million lawsuit alleges a personal injury firm had its clients stolen by two competitors who sent case runners to a pain clinic where they enticed the patients to switch firms.

Reporter Debra Cassens Weiss writes: “The law firm Ginarte Gallardo Gonzalez & Winograd, with offices in New York and New Jersey, alleges its clients were lured away with promises of payments of about $2,000 or $3,000, which were paid from a ‘briefcase full of cash’ by lawyer William Schwitzer.

The suit names Schwitzer and his firm, William Schwitzer & Associates in New York City, as defendants, along with some other lawyers associated with the firm.

Read the ABA Journal article.

Zapproved has published the new Fall 2018 Ediscovery Case Law Summaries. This new edition explores how recent spoliation, proportionality, and other ediscovery-relevant case decisions are guiding litigation.

This free volume, which can be downloaded from Zapproved’s website, includes 12 full summaries, plus brief abstracts of case law from the last 10 years.

The new summaries are:

• World Trade Ctrs. Assoc., Inc. v. Port Auth. of N.Y. & N.J.
• BankDirect Capital Fin., LLC v. Capital Premium Fin., Inc.
• EPAC Techs., Inc. v. HarperCollins Christian Publ’g, Inc.
• De Simone v. VSL Pharms., Inc.
• Elliott-Thomas v. Smith
• GoPro, Inc. v. 360Heros, Inc.
• Nece v. Quicken Loans, Inc.
• The Physicians Alliance Corp. v. WellCare Health Ins. of Ariz., Inc.
• Cen Com, Inc. v. Numerex Corp.
• Equal Emp’t Opportunity Comm’n v. FedEx Ground Package Sys., Inc.
• In re Simply Orange Orange Juice Mktg. & Sales Practices Litig.
• Johnson v. Ford Motor Co.

Download the summaries.