Georgia Senate Bill 68, signed into law by Governor Brian Kemp on April 21, 2025, introduces significant changes to the state’s civil litigation landscape. Most notable is the implementation of a mandatory 90-day stay of discovery after a litigant files a motion to dismiss. This provision takes effect on July 1, 2025, and allows defendants to challenge the validity of a case without the immediate burden of discovery, potentially saving time and resources if the motion is successful.
In February 2025, the United States Environmental Protection Agency announced it will delay the addition of nine per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (“PFAS”) to its Toxics Release Inventory Report for the 2025 reporting year. “PFAS” is a term used to describe a diverse group of chemicals contained in many consumer products and industrial processes. The EPA’s announcement followed President Trump’s January 2025 memorandum “Regulatory Freeze Pending Review” which, among other things, requested a 60-day postponement “to the effective date memorandum for any rules that have been published in the Federal Register, or any rules that have been issued in any manner but have not taken effect, so that the administration may review any questions of fact, law, and policy that the rules may raise.” Accordingly, impacted industries now have additional time to prepare for new PFAS reporting requirements under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (“EPCRA”) and the Pollution Prevention Act (“PPA”) following the addition of nine PFAS chemicals to the Toxics Release Inventory (“TRI”).
On August 15, 2023, the Missouri Supreme Court in State ex rel. Monsanto Co. v. Mullen, No. SC99942 (Mo. Aug. 15, 2023) (en banc), clarified competing interpretations of Mo. Rev. Stat. 508.010.5(1) (2016) with regard to the proper venue for defendant corporations sued by plaintiffs alleging first injury outside the state of Missouri. In the opinion, the Missouri Supreme Court held that venue is determined based on the location of the defendant corporation’s registered agent at the time the suit is filed, rather than the registered agent’s location on the date of a plaintiff’s first alleged injury, resolving an ambiguity contained in the statute.
Under the now widely-adopted Daubert standard, courts evaluate expert testimony based on the principles and methodology underlying the expert witness’s opinion. Admissibility of expert testimony is not governed by whether the factual underpinnings of the opinion are sound, or the conclusions correct, but rather by the relevancy and reliability of the methods applied in forming said opinion. The United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois recently illustrated these principles in Johnson v. Orton.
In Murphy v. Viad Corporation, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan recently considered the issue of specific personal jurisdiction in the context of asbestos claims under the standard set forth by the Supreme Court of the United States in its recent decision in Ford Motor Co. v. Mont. Eighth Judicial Dist. Court. In doing so, the Court reinforced that specific jurisdiction cannot be established where the products at issue were never sold or marketed in that forum.
On September 1, 2021, the South Carolina Court of Appeals affirmed the circuit court’s decision in the matter of Jolly v. General Electric, et al. in which it had (1) denied defendants’ motion for a JNOV, (2) granted a new trial nisi additur, and (3) denied motions to quash subpoenas requiring defendants’ corporate representatives to appear and testify at trial. The appeal was brought by two defendants, Fisher Controls International, LLC and Crosby Valve, LLC (hereinafter “Defendants”) who had received an adverse verdict following trial in July 2017. Most notably, the circuit court had granted the Plaintiffs’ motion for a new trial nisi additur and increased the total jury verdict from $300,000 to $1.87 million. This article examines several holdings in the Jolly opinion which present future implications for asbestos litigation in South Carolina, particularly with regard to the causation standard, the sophisticated intermediary doctrine, additur, and the setoff of verdicts.
On June 1, 2021, the United States Supreme Court announced it would not accept Johnson & Johnson’s petition for certiorari seeking to overturn a $2.12 billion dollar damages award rendered in Missouri to twenty-two Missouri women who alleged their ovarian cancer was caused from microscopic asbestos fibers in the company’s baby powder and other talc products.
Heavy metals, such as arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury, are present in baby foods produced by U.S. baby food manufacturers according to a report released in February by the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy. Heavy metals are considered dangerous to human health and are especially concerning for children and babies, who are more susceptible to the neurological effects associated with exposure to heavy metals.
In 2019, the Missouri legislature passed Senate Bill 224 (SB 224), effectively revising Missouri’s discovery rules to align them with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. (See our 2019 post for analysis of SB 224’s changes to the Missouri Rules of Civil Procedure.) The applicability of SB 224’s revisions remained unclear for some time, however, as the Missouri Supreme Court hesitated to adopt them into the Missouri Rules of Civil Procedure.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, courts and litigants are reinventing civil litigation – holding hearings on Zoom or Skype, using emails and conference calls to communicate status, and taking remote depositions. That said, “virtual discovery” is not new. Since 1993, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure expressly authorized taking depositions by remote electronic means. States including Ohio, Massachusetts and Texas have followed suit. See, e.g., Ohio R. Civ. P. 30(b)(6); Mass. R. Civ. P. 29; Tex. R. Civ. P. 199.1