By Michael Stanisci | #MassTortMichael | About a 10 minute read Opening Note A door only helps you if you walk through it while it is open. That is the theme this week. In Rhode Island, a two year filing window just opened for survivors of childhood sexual abuse, and dozens of cases were filed on day one. In the social media litigation, a courtroom door is opening in Oakland for one of the biggest trials of the year. In the Uber litigation, the judge just told both sides the

By Michael Stanisci | #MassTortMichael | About a 10 minute read Opening Note Some weeks in mass torts move slow. This was not one of them. On Monday, the California Supreme Court ended the largest "duty to innovate" case in American history. About a week before that, Johnson & Johnson agreed to pay $5.5 billion to close out most of the talc ovarian cancer docket. Two of the biggest litigations of the last decade both hit turning points within ten days of each other. Here is t

By Michael Stanisci | #MassTortMichael | About a 10 minute read A note from me before we start This week I want to talk about a simple idea. Some of the biggest cases in America right now are not about a broken hip implant or a bad chemical in the water. They are about design. Companies built products, apps, and systems that were meant to pull people in and keep them there. Courts are now asking a hard question. If you build something on purpose to hook a child, or you look t

Mass Torts and Personal Injury, Explained in Plain English By Michael Stanisci | #MassTortMichael | Week of July 3, 2026 A Note From Me Before We Start This week's edition is a heavy one for me. We lost Paul Napoli on Tuesday. He was 58 years old [1]. Paul was a giant in this industry, and he was my friend. I want to start there, because the rest of this newsletter, all the cases and numbers and strategy, only matters because of people like him. People who decided that fighti

Today, June 25, 2026, the Supreme Court decided Monsanto v. Durnell 7-2. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the majority opinion, holding that FIFRA expressly preempts state-law failure-to-warn claims against Monsanto for not putting a cancer warning on Roundup. Let me tell you what that really means, why it happened, and where we can go from here. Much smarter lawyers and individuals than me are thankfully at the helm, so more information will emerge on strategy that I'm certain