Not everything stamped “privileged” is safe from prying eyes. The Pennsylvania Superior Court recently ruled that interview notes compiled by a sorority’s leadership after a tragic incident were not shielded by attorney-client privilege or the attorney work product doctrine. This decision serves as a cautionary tale for lawyers and their clients on how privilege works—and when it does not. See King v. Alpha Sigma Tau Sorority et al., 2025 PA Super 8, No. 55 MDA 2024 (Pa. Super 2025).
The number of cases involving so-called “nuclear verdicts” — that is, verdicts with awards of $10 million or more — have risen sharply, and many of those cases concern product liability claims. For large corporations, such verdicts can be damaging, both from a financial and reputational standpoint, but rarely do they significantly impact operations beyond the quarter or year in which they are booked. For middle-market and smaller corporations, however, product liability litigation can be enterprise-threatening; therefore, it is vital for smaller corporations — especially those with limited in-house legal resources — to understand the claims most often brought in product liability litigation, how to triage inbound lawsuits, and when to call on outside legal advice to resolve disputes.
Litigants recently tested the limits of liability waivers under Iowa law. In a 6-1 decision, the Iowa Supreme Court joined the bulk of other jurisdictions and held a contractual liability waiver was not enforceable “to the extent it purports to eliminate liability for the willful, wanton, or reckless conduct” a plaintiff alleges. Lukken v. Fleischer, 962 N.W.2d 71, 82 (Iowa 2021).
On September 5, 2018, the Appellate Court for the Fourth District of Illinois introduced heightened standards for plaintiffs to establish duty and causation in asbestos litigation through its reversal of a McLean County trial court’s decision denying a defendant’s motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. McKinney v. Hobart Bros. Co., 2018 IL App (4th) 170333, appeal denied, 116 N.E.3d 948 (Ill. 2019). In McKinney, the plaintiff sued Defendant Hobart Brothers Company (“Hobart”) alleging his eight-month workplace exposure to Hobart’s asbestos-containing welding rods in 1962 and 1963 caused his mesothelioma. The welding rods at issue allegedly contained asbestos fibers that were encapsulated. The plaintiff also alleged exposure to asbestos-containing automotive products that occurred during the course of his forty-year mechanic career. In reversing the trial judgment, the McKinney Court addressed three issues of expert testimony admissibility under Rule 213 and ultimately tightened the reins on exposure claims involving encapsulated asbestos fibers by requiring industry knowledge of harm for the manufacturer’s product at issue before imposing a duty and ushering in the “substantial factor” test for causation.