Welcome to Critical Mass, Law.com's weekly briefing for class action and mass tort attorneys. I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy. Prominent plaintiffs' firms are starting to file a wide range of lawsuits over COVID-19. And pharmacies, citing their own roles in the pandemic, want a 60-day delay of deadlines in the opioid case set for trial. Meanwhile, which firms sued Zoom over alleged privacy violations?

Feel free to reach out to me with your input. You can email me at [email protected], or follow me on Twitter: @abronstadlaw.

 

Prominent Plaintiffs' Firms Pounce on Pandemic Suits

Prominent plaintiffs' firms are filing lawsuits over COVID-19, with DiCello Levitt and Bursor & Fisher bringing class actions on Friday against 24 Hour Fitness and the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of customers who want their money back.

Meanwhile, Milberg Phillips Grossman, Sanders Phillips Grossman and Greg Coleman Law teamed up to create a Coronavirus Litigation Task Force, which involves about 30 attorneys. That group will focus on workers' compensation, insurance coverage, products liability involving protective gear and class actions, such as antitrust and consumer fraud—areas already spawning lawsuits over alleged price gouging and invalid health claims.

I asked Tina Bullock [Sanders Phillips Grossman] which cases she expected her team to file first. Here's what she said:

"I would think the products would come before some of the business interruption claims, but they're both moving so fast it's like a legal pandemic. A lot of our attorneys are working literally night and day on this, and it's hard to predict how fast. Usually it takes us a week or two to draft a complaint, and the speed of this is moving as the urgency of trying to protect people would prompt us to act much faster."


At Daly City's Target store in the Bay Area shelves are picked over and deserted. (Photo: Jason Doiy/ALM)

 

Amid COVID-19, Pharmacies Seek Opioid Case Delays

Citing their roles as "essential businesses" in the COVID-19 outbreak, a group of pharmacies have asked a federal judge to delay upcoming depositions and discovery deadlines in a leading opioid case against them by 60 more days. The pharmacies, which include CVS and Rite Aid, are set to go to trial on Nov. 9.

Lawyers on the plaintiffs' executive committee opposed the motion but suggested that counsel "hold the current litigation deadlines" and reevaluate the situation on April 20.

U.S. District Judge Dan Polster hasn't ruled yet, but, on Monday, special master David Cohen emailed lawyers saying he would not extend deadlines for document production. But he did say:

"Regarding depositions, the court believes it is likely there will need to be deadline extensions, but the court will wait and assess this on April 28, 2020."

Who Got the Work?

Video-conferencing company Zoom Video Communications was hit with two class actions alleging its service, which has become ubiquitous as more employees work from home, is illegally disclosing personal information to Facebook and others. Both were filed this week in California's Northern District. Mark Tamblyn and Kenneth Wexler (Wexler Wallace) and Daniel Gustafson, David Goodwin and Ling Wang (Gustafson Gluek), filed a case on Monday, and Hassan Zavareei, Katherine Aizpuru and Annick Persinger (Tycko & Zavareei) filed another on Tuesday.

Here's what else is happening:

Dicamba Demur: Bayer moved to toss last month's $265 million dicamba verdict, citing the jury's "novel theory" that Monsanto could be held liable for the actions of third parties involving another company's herbicide. In motions filed on Friday, Bayer also called the $250 million in punitive damages excessive, unconstitutional and "the result of passion and prejudice." The trial was the first to find that dicamba herbicides made by Monsanto and BASF, another defendant, drifted into neighboring fields, damaging crops.

Postmates Sues: In the latest skirmish between Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and Keller Lenkner, Postmates has sued more than 10,000 of the delivery service's carriers for filing multiple arbitration demands in order to "extract a ransom-style settlement." In February, Keller Lenkner, which represents the Postmates carriers, won a motion to compel in a similar case involving 6,000 carriers for DoorDash, another Gibson Dunn client.

Apple Slices: In her latest ruling to address standing to sue in a class action, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh partially dismissed a case alleging Apple deceived customers into overpaying for iCloud subscriptions since their content was stored by Amazon, Microsoft, Google and others that offered cheaper services. On Friday, Koh found that class members who did not actually pay for a subscription did not have standing to pursue injunctive relief. Beatriz Mejia, Matthew Brown and Lauren Pomeroy (Cooley) represented Apple against plaintiffs' attorneys Roy Katriel (The Katriel Law Firm) and Azra Mehdi (The Mehdi Firm).

Thanks for reading Critical Mass! I'll be back next week.