We were in attendance at the most recent Status Conference in Judge Jones courtroom in Wilmington. Both the Department of Justice counsel and Plaintiff’s Leadership Group counsel appeared with updates for the Court. Of particular note:
1. The discovery process for the 100 selected “bellwether” cases continue with issues primarily related to legal causation discussed. From those discussions, it appears that the initial selected cases will not be tried until the summer of 2025. Each case will be tried before a selected judge according to the issue in the case with the objective of allowing individual judges to become familiar with the issues and the claims. Unfortunately, no trial dates have been set. Case filings continue to be stayed until the Bellwethers are resolved
2. The DOJ counsel confirmed that over 560,000 claims were filed prior to the 10 AUG 2024 deadline and the DON is working to administratively organize and evaluate the claims. At present it appears that over 90,000 claims are duplicate claims and will be removed from the system. The DOJ anticipates that more duplicate claims will be identified, and the total number of valid claims will be significantly less.
3. Our team will continue to participate in each Status Conference as scheduled.
As we have more information, we will provide additional updates. Please don’t hesitate to contact our team should you have questions.
Thank you for your loyalty and for your valuable time. We greatly appreciate the opportunity to work for you and your families.
Sincerely,
Harry Blalock
