Hello again from the law firm. I hope everyone had an enjoyable holiday last week with the 4th of July festivities as we all once again celebrated the fact that our country gained its independence and self- governance 250 years ago. A main component of our democracy was the creation of a “trial by jury” process with a federal system of the judiciary as well as an independent state judiciary. It has endured all these years because it works. Sometimes slow, sometimes with defects, but it works.
I wanted to provide a bunch of good news this quarter on many of our dockets. While we handle a lot of cases “one at a time” from transportation injuries, job related injuries, business torts and other matters, a large part of our docket, with over 25,000 total cases, are the types of cases that involve hundreds, thousands and sometimes even hundreds of thousands of claimants. These are almost always sent to a single court to handle, called an MDL court. There all the lawyers for all the parties conduct one massive round of discovery into all issues in the case and then either try test cases, settle all of the claims, or request that individual claims all be sent home for individual trials, which frankly the courts are reluctant to do under most circumstances. The result of this process is that these claims typically take 5 years or longer to go through that preparation process for resolution.
This year we have been able to finally get a lot of these MDL cases to the finish line. Many of the 3M military hearing loss cases are starting to fund. The ITC terminal fire in Houston will fund by the end of the year. The TPC refinery explosion bankruptcy will fund by the end of this year. The Astroworld litigation is setting many cases for trial this fall and into next spring, which will probably result in resolution of that docket. Our KMCO refinery explosion cases are being set for somewhere around the end of this year, which will result in those claims being settled by then or tried.
The MDL courts in Missouri have recently expressed a desire to speed up the dockets for the Roundup cases and start setting trials in 2025. It’s this type of aggressive movement of these dockets that is encouraging for final resolution. The lawyers working at the firm in leadership roles on each of those dockets and many others weigh in with the quarterly analysis and update on each docket so that all of you can get a solid update on the status of the litigation we are handling for you on a regular basis, and the information can likewise be used by other clients with other legal matters who then see that they may have a claim in that other matter as well, or know someone who does. If that happens, reach out to us and we will be happy to help.
As all of you following the news have heard, our main office in Beaumont, Texas and our Houston, Texas litigation office were caught up in the path of hurricane Beryl last week. Fortunately both offices were spared from serious damage or power loss but some of our staff was not so lucky and are still without power in 100 degree temperatures for over a week now. A few of them have been out of the office as a consequence as well so if you needed to hear from someone in particular from either of those offices the responses may be little slower due to those circumstances so please be patient or feel free to reach out through our email or chat features and we can probably redirect your inquiry.
We have been successfully resolving complex as well as less complicated litigation matters in all 50 states as well as overseas for 36 years now and look to continue to move forward with the same positive attitude and commitment as we move into the 37th year.
I wanted to provide a bunch of good news this quarter on many of our dockets. While we handle a lot of cases “one at a time” from transportation injuries, job related injuries, business torts and other matters, a large part of our docket, with over 25,000 total cases, are the types of cases that involve hundreds, thousands and sometimes even hundreds of thousands of claimants. These are almost always sent to a single court to handle, called an MDL court. There all the lawyers for all the parties conduct one massive round of discovery into all issues in the case and then either try test cases, settle all of the claims, or request that individual claims all be sent home for individual trials, which frankly the courts are reluctant to do under most circumstances. The result of this process is that these claims typically take 5 years or longer to go through that preparation process for resolution.
This year we have been able to finally get a lot of these MDL cases to the finish line. Many of the 3M military hearing loss cases are starting to fund. The ITC terminal fire in Houston will fund by the end of the year. The TPC refinery explosion bankruptcy will fund by the end of this year. The Astroworld litigation is setting many cases for trial this fall and into next spring, which will probably result in resolution of that docket. Our KMCO refinery explosion cases are being set for somewhere around the end of this year, which will result in those claims being settled by then or tried.
The MDL courts in Missouri have recently expressed a desire to speed up the dockets for the Roundup cases and start setting trials in 2025. It’s this type of aggressive movement of these dockets that is encouraging for final resolution. The lawyers working at the firm in leadership roles on each of those dockets and many others weigh in with the quarterly analysis and update on each docket so that all of you can get a solid update on the status of the litigation we are handling for you on a regular basis, and the information can likewise be used by other clients with other legal matters who then see that they may have a claim in that other matter as well, or know someone who does. If that happens, reach out to us and we will be happy to help.
As all of you following the news have heard, our main office in Beaumont, Texas and our Houston, Texas litigation office were caught up in the path of hurricane Beryl last week. Fortunately both offices were spared from serious damage or power loss but some of our staff was not so lucky and are still without power in 100 degree temperatures for over a week now. A few of them have been out of the office as a consequence as well so if you needed to hear from someone in particular from either of those offices the responses may be little slower due to those circumstances so please be patient or feel free to reach out through our email or chat features and we can probably redirect your inquiry.
We have been successfully resolving complex as well as less complicated litigation matters in all 50 states as well as overseas for 36 years now and look to continue to move forward with the same positive attitude and commitment as we move into the 37th year.