Headlines

Vaping among today’s youth has reached crisis levels. If you have any doubt, look at the numbers. Even as traditional cigarette use continues to decline among high school students, vaping “increased alarmingly” between 2017 and 2018 by 78 percent, according to the FDA, to more than 3 million American teens. Shockingly, when accounting for middle schoolers, that number rises to more than 3.6 million.

Today’s decision by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals addressing the public disclosure of the ARCOS (Automation of Reports and Consolidated Orders System maintained by the Federal Drug Enforcement Agency, DEA, of controlled substances from their point of manufacturer through their distribution) database is a win for the public and for public health in this country.

A proposed “Negotiating Class” of municipalities would help communities that are struggling with the opioid crisis function as a group for the purpose of negotiating a settlement with opioid defendants, plaintiffs in the National Prescription Opiate MDL.

With the volume of filed National Prescription Opiate Litigation cases (more than 1,800), which comprise just 10% of the nation’s counties and cities, a structure and process is needed to provide all counties and cities nationwide, filed and unfiled, with a collective and powerful voice in the litigation, and create a pre-established mechanism through which plaintiffs can consider and have a vote in potential settlements with defendants.

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced an award of $3 million to a pair of whistleblowers who provided original information to the Commission that led to a successful enforcement action involving an alleged securities violation that harmed retail investors.

A Milwaukee, Wis., jury has found lead pigment manufacturers The Sherwin-Williams Co., E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., and Armstrong Containers, Inc., responsible for the toxic lead exposures of three young men, all residents of Milwaukee and minors at the time of their lead exposure in their homes. The jury awarded $6 million total, $2 million to each plaintiff.

Motley Rice filed a consolidated amended complaint involving Riot Blockchain, Inc. alleging the company and its officers orchestrated a pump-and-dump scheme to misled shareholders about the company’s supposed transformation from a maker of veterinary products to a miner of cryptocurrency.

The U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in a Food Drug and Cosmetic Act preemption case Merck v. Albrecht. The case sought to settle whether a judge or jury should decide the fate of complex medical litigation claims barred by prior FDA action, and to articulate standards for such “clear evidence” preemption.

Motley Rice announces the addition of attorneys Esther E. Berezofsky, Michael J. Quirk, Daniel R. Lapinski, and Sarah T. Hansel, and the creation of offices in Cherry Hill, N.J., and Philadelphia, Pa.

Fourteen Motley Rice attorneys were named to the 2019 Super Lawyers® and Rising Stars for South Carolina, Washington, D.C. and West Virginia.