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Handful Of Law Firms Continue To Press Brain Cancer Lawsuits
RCR Wireless News
Journalist: Jeffrey Silva
March 24, 2003
Plaintiffs' lawyers are leaning toward an appeal of U.S. District Judge
Catherine Blake's dismissal of five class-action lawsuits on headset health
protection and say they have no plans to drop a slew of brain-cancer lawsuits
pending before a Baltimore judge who has been hostile to wireless health
litigation and highly supportive of industry's federal pre-emption arguments.
The legal developments come as two newly published studies by Swedish
scientists, including one whose testimony was debunked in the $800 million
cancer suit thrown out by Blake last year, link cell-phone use to brain tumors.
Meanwhile, Reuters reported data from a conference in Italy pointing to a
40-percent increase in brain tumors in the United States and Europe in the past
20 years.
Still, the decision to continue pressing health litigation, despite Blake's
dismissal of Christopher Newman's brain-cancer lawsuit and her recent headset
ruling, remains a high-risk proposition for plaintiffs' lawyers. The costs can
be huge, both in terms of the hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal expenses
and judicial precedent. But those costs pale in comparison to the risk to
industry, which has spent millions defending itself the past two decades, of
losing a single case.
A handful of law firms are pressing the brain-cancer and headset class-action
lawsuits. In some cases, they work together and in others they do not.
"We intend to go forward," said Jeffrey Morganroth, whose Michigan law firm
represents six brain-cancer victims who have filed lawsuits against wireless
firms, trade associations and standards bodies.
Morganroth conceded the mobile-phone industry has fared well in Blake's court to
date. But he said all brain-cancer cases are not the same and that the ruling on
the Newman case, litigated by the law firm of Baltimore Orioles owner Peter
Angelos and under appeal in a Richmond circuit, does not necessarily dictate the
outcome of his law firm's cases.
"We have a different philosophy of how to present and package the cases," said
Morganroth. Morganroth said his legal team will be relying on a different set of
experts than those Angelos relied on in the Newman case. However, it is not
clear that Morganroth's experts have committed to having their research and
scientific careers scrutinized by industry lawyers who were highly effective in
undermining testimony of Newman's experts.
At least one other plaintiff is expressing more caution. Lawyers representing a
Texas brain-cancer victim recently asked Blake to stay all further proceedings
in its lawsuit against wireless firms, pending the outcome of the Newman appeal
in Richmond. The final brief in the appeal should be filed today. The court then
likely will set a date for oral argument, which is expected to take place later
this year.
Elsewhere, RCR Wireless News learned last week that Georgia's Brian Barrett, a
plaintiff in one brain-cancer case before Blake, died last November. However,
the lawsuit will continue on behalf of his estate and his wife.
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