CCL President Robert S. Peck described issues being litigated in courts around the country that affect civil litigation at the American Association for Justice’s State Summit, a gathering of state trial lawyer presidents and executive directors in Washington, D.C. on October 21. Peck reviewed some of the cases pending this term before the U.S. Supreme Court, including four cases in which CCL serves as counsel of record: two under the title of Wal-Mart v. Braun, as well as Ortiz v. United States and Johnson & Johnson v. Reckis. The Wal-Mart cases involve undercompensation of Pennsylvania workers for their paid rest breaks, in which Wal-Mart attacked the use of extrapolation for records the company deliberately stopped keeping to avoid liability. Ortiz is a challenge to government immunity for medical malpractice at a military hospital that resulted in brain damage to a newborn. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, in contrast to decisions from other circuits, held the government immune, which also results in discrimination against mothers in the military, when the immunity would not apply if the military member was the father. Finally, in Reckis, Johnson & Johnson is arguing that a significant verdict for a young girl’s catastrophic injuries resulting from Children’s Motrin, which had not relevant warning at the time, is preempted.

Peck also described some of the challenges to damages caps the CCL is undertaking, including one now pending in the Oklahoma Supreme Court.