The recent news that Johnson & Johnson has been ordered by a Texas jury to pay more than $1 billion to patients whose artificial hips had to be surgically removed was the latest attention-grabber in the world of product liability litigation. The verdict includes more than $30 million in actual damages for the six plaintiffs and more than $1 billion in punitive damages, the largest reported punitive award against a company in 2016.
The stakes are high for all involved in product liability matters, especially regarding properly managing the e-discovery process. A 2016 study by Gibson Dunn found 32 decisions in the first half of last year pertaining to failure to preserve evidence under Rule 37(e). Among those decisions, 13 granted sanctions against opposing counsel.
