A selection of the need-to-know civil justice news for the week of June 13-19.
Uber Worker Ruling Highlights the Legal Troubles of a ‘Sharing Economy’
Chris Kirkham, Christine Mai-Duc and Andrew Khouri | Los Angeles Times
The Uber business model is pretty simple: People use the ride-hailing app to find a driver to take them where they want to go for a price. But is that driver an Uber employee or an independent contractor?
J&J Wants 103 NJ Baby Powder Suits Centralized
Alex Wolf | Law360
Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiaries are seeking to designate for multicounty litigation in Atlantic County more than 100 suits claiming the company’s baby powder and other talc-based products sold over the counter caused ovarian cancer.
Prom Accessories: Corsages, Limousines and Liability Waivers
Katherine Rosman | New York Times
Adam Wergeles, a corporate lawyer in Los Angeles, spent hours, if not days, sweating over a legal document this spring. Taking black pen to paper, he x-ed out words, added others, made notations in the margin and sought counsel from another lawyer.
In Federal Appeals Courts, Chivalry Is Not Dead
Joe Palazzolo | Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog
Chivalry is not dead in the U.S. courts of appeal, according to a new study. Typically, gender studies of judicial decision-making focus on how women judges are different from their male counterparts. But a group of researchers from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, flipped the script: What male qualities, they asked, affect how guy judges decide cases?
‘Internet of Things’ Could Drive Litigation Uptick
Charles Toutant | New Jersey Law Journal
Lax security for the growing number of appliances, televisions, cars and other everyday items connected to the Internet will prompt a wave of litigation in coming years, some lawyers have predicted.
Deeper Dive on New Jersey Accutane Summary Judgment Decision
Eric Alexander | Drug and Device Law Blog
Without pulling back the curtain all the way on how we find out about new decisions worth a pithy post, we occasionally re-learn about decisions when they are published or added to an electronic reporting service a few months later. When there is a slow week, this dynamic may prompt us to talk about an older decision, even if has already been the subject of a breaking news post. The summary judgment decision in In re Accutane Litigation, No. 271 (MCL), 2015 N.J. Super. Unpub. LEXIS 1216 (N.J. Super. Law Div. Apr. 2, 2015) was the subject of a breaking news post two months ago, but deserves another look, more for the story it tells about drug litigation than for its direct precedential value.
Ralph Nader Is Finally About to Open His Super-Exciting Museum About Tort Law
Jaime Fuller | New York Magazine
Ralph Nader has been making plans for an American Museum of Tort Law for 17 years, and it is supposed to open in his hometown of Winsted, Connecticut, in the upcoming months.
Virtual Law Firms may be on Upswing in North Jersey
Melanie Anzidei | The Record
Law firms in North Jersey are going digital, jettisoning brick-and-mortar offices and establishing virtual law firms that bring services to clients from a distance using technological forms of communication, instead of traditional face-to-face meetings.
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