Yet another case illustrates why defense counsel, including products liability litigators, should be mindful of the ever changing landscape of social media and its potential for impeachment of Plaintiffs in litigation. That case is the recently issued Sedie v. United States, No. C-08-04417, 2010 WL 1644252 (N.D. Cal. April 21, 2010). In that case, the Plaintiff sued the federal government under the Federal Tort Claims Act after a 2006 automobile accident during which he, riding a bicycle, was struck by a postal vehicle. Both parties consented to a bench trial before U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth D. LaPorte, which took place this past February. In her “Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law Following Court Trial,” Judge LaPorte ultimately found that the Plaintiff had established the government’s liability and awarded damages in the amount of $297,624.66.

Even though the magistrate ultimately found for the Plaintiff, in reviewing some of the submitted damages evidence, the magistrate noted the contradictions between Plaintiff’s purported damages and Internet evidence uncovered by defense counsel:

Other evidence also undermines the extent of Plaintiff’s general damages. Plaintiff testified that he spends much of his time lying down, and there are times that he does not leave his room because he is depressed about his overall situation. However, the Court finds this testimony is only partially accurate, and is exaggerated given the other evidence of his actual activities and his pattern of exaggeration. For example, Plaintiff’s online writings show that his life was not constantly “hell on earth” as he claimed. Plaintiff maintained his pages on MySpace and Facebook since the accident, and as of January 12, 2010, his MySpace page listed various activities and hobbies, and friends of Plaintiff. Plaintiff wrote entries on his MySpace page, including one on June 3, 2007, in which he described painting as a frustrating activity when his arm hairs would get caught in paint. Yet painting was on the list of activities that Plaintiff claims were adversely affected by the accident. Plaintiff also testified that he had not done any painting since the accident, but the MySpace entry was written in the present tense at a time just prior to his microdiscectomy. Plaintiff testified that the MySpace entry was a joke, but the Court did not find the testimony credible.

Id. at *23 (emphasis added; citations omitted).

Plaintiff’s attorneys continue to warn their current and potential clients of the potential adverse impact of Facebook and MySpace profiles. For the most part, these clients do not appear to be heeding that advice. That is why the diligent practitioner will always survey the Internet to determine whether a given Plaintiff has established profiles on such sites.

Arguably, a benefit of product liability litigation is that lawsuits demand that companies design products with greater safety measures and provide consumers with more pronounced, descriptive warnings. A guest speaker at my law school once told my class that engineers and automakers didn’t design many parts of the automobile — lawyers did. What he meant, of course, was that attorneys have filed suits against automakers when parts of a vehicle were allegedly unsafe or could have been designed with even greater safety measures in mind. This had, in turn, dictated the way that automakers designed that product from that point forward. The same guest speaker probably would not, however, have envisioned the alleged actions one California product liability attorney and his expert witness recently took in helping inspire this design process.

The California Court of Appeals recently refused to strike the plaintiffs’ complaint, where they filed suit against their attorneys and a consultant hired by their attorneys as an expert witness for negligence and conspiracy to commit fraud. Robles v. Chalilpoyil, —Cal.Rptr.3d—, (Cal. App. Jan. 27, 2010). The underlying action in Robles was a product liability claim initiated by the family of a man who burned to death when his wheelchair, which presumably was electric, ignited while he was occupying it. The family retained an attorney named Wills to represent them in their wrongful death action against the makers of the wheelchair.

According to the complaint, when the underlying case came up for trial, the family’s attorney requested a continuance on the basis that the plaintiffs’ expert witness had testified falsely in his deposition. The trial court thereby continued the trial to allow the attorneys to procure another expert witness. Before the new trial date, however, the attorney allegedly requested that each of the plaintiffs sign a waiver of any interest in a device that attorney Wills wanted to market to address the safety defects in the decedent’s wheelchair. Wills allegedly told the family members that the device would be designed and manufactured together with their former expert witness, based on research and information the expert witness had gathered in preparing for his expert testimony for trial.

After procuring each of the plaintiffs’ signatures and without retaining a new expert, the attorney “wrongfully pressured” the plaintiffs to settle the claim for $1 million. When several of the plaintiffs thereafter refused to accept the settlement proceeds, the Wills firm withdrew from the case and filed notice of lien for attorney fees.

The present case deals only with the issues of liability of the expert witness, as it was he who moved to strike allegations of the complaint as a SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation). According to the court, a SLAPP is a “meritless suit filed primarily to chill the defendant’s exercise of First Amendment rights.” The expert witness argued that his discussions with the attorney, during which the attorney solicited his agreement to allow his work product to be provided to the underlying defendants in the event of settlement, fell “comfortably” within the express terms of the anti-SLAPP statute. The California Court of Appeals disagreed, holding that such alleged discussions and agreements was not protected activity. It would not strike the plaintiffs’ complaint insofar as it alleged negligence and conspiracy to commit fraud against the former expert witness.

As noted, the court’s opinion deals with allegations of the complaint as alleged only against the expert witness. The attorney Wills, who represented the family in the underlying action, reportedly is the same person who was subsequently appointed to serve as a California Superior Court judge.

The California appellate court holding, which has sparked considerable controversy and disdain within the legal and pharmaceutical industries and in courts throughout the country, was issued in November of 2008. Conte v. Wyeth, Inc., 168 Cal. App. 4th 89, 85 Cal. Rptr. 3d 299 (Cal. Ct. App. 2008). Conte involved the use of metoclopramide, a drug which had been sold by Wyeth as Reglan before going off patent and becoming subject to manufacture in generic forms. A user of one of these generic medications alleged that as a result of prolonged use of the drug, she developed tardive dyskinesia, a debilitating and incurable neurological disorder. She filed suit, not against the manufacturer of the generic drug or the doctor who prescribed it, but against the deep-pocketed manufacturer of the name-brand form of the drug.

The Conte court broke new ground with its holding:

As such, even though it was undisputed that the plaintiff had not consumed a product manufactured by Wyeth — indeed, it was a product of its competitor — and undisputed that Wyeth did not provide labels for or sell the product at issue, Wyeth essentially was held liable for the alleged negligence of another. This California court opinion has, however, been universally rejected by courts throughout the country, all of which apparently recognize the dangers of extending liability to one company for the actions of another.

Most recently, nearly identical issues were addressed in a federal district court in Florida. Levine v. Wyeth, Inc., — F. Supp. 2d —, No. 8:09-CV-854-T-33AEP, 2010 WL 456773 (M.D. Fla. Feb. 10, 2010). The Levine plaintiff, just as the Conte plaintiff had before him, conceded that he never ingested Reglan or any other product made by the defendant, but claimed instead that he developed tardive dyskinesia as a result of use of the generic form of the drug. Relying on the Conte opinion, he alleged theories of negligent misrepresentation, fraud, negligence, strict liability, and breach of warranty.

The plaintiff claimed that doctors, pharmacists, and patients, in prescribing or being prescribed prescription drugs, rely on information provided by companies like Wyeth. The defendant, in turn, simply argued that it could not be held liable under any of the plaintiff’s causes of action as a matter of law because the plaintiff never used its product.

The Florida court sided with Wyeth, granting its motion for summary judgment as to all causes of action:

Above: The likely lead exhibit in the litigation predicted below. Click to enlarge.
As Americans, we have a love/hate relationship with food that usually results in hyperlipidemia. So much so that many of you have been driven to the edge of sanity by consuming copious amounts of leafy greens, only to binge on vats of ice cream and trans fats. To you health-conscious readers who recoiled in horror at my fried chicken sandwich post (but secretly enjoy the delicacy that is gas-station fried chicken), we now confront the quagmire of nutritional supplements (read:”steroids”). Perhaps even the health-conscious will admit that some take their “health” too seriously. Having not been to the gym in several years, I can only assume that there are still guys who gel their hair before embarking on 1.8 hour bench press sessions and grunt convincingly about the latest supplements in voices that carry throughout the room. In law school, we called such people “undergrads.” If you know someone fitting this description, let them know of a recent recall.

The appellate court reasoned that because of the status of California law, a showing of individual deception and reliance wasn’t necessary under the UCL and that the trial court used an incorrect legal assumption under the CLRA. The appellate court left open the question whether there is a “reasonable bodybuilder” standard, and, if so, its application in this matter. As noted above, and as found by the trial court, a reasonable bodybuilder might push the limits more than your ordinary reasonable person. Isn’t it at least plausible that a reasonable bodybuilder would hope against hope that his supplement contained a little something extra. Maybe not in the post-Schwarzenegger era. The court’s legal reasoning is straightforward, but the supplement crowd may have fashioned a workable grand scheme: Buy supplements, see if they work, and if they don’t, seek restitution under consumer protection statutes. Those who disagree may just have sand kicked in their faces.

• “[W]hile the Beastie Boys might disagree, the First Amendment does not imply a ‘right to party’ dissociated from expression.” URI Student Senate v. Town of Narragansett, — F. Supp. 2d —-, No. 08-207, 2010 WL 222587, at *6 n.4 (D.R.I. Jan. 22, 2010) (internal link obviously added) (Link courtesy of The Volokh Conspiracy). Nice, but can it compete with the 1987 Fifth Circuit Talking Heads opinion? We here think not.
• The Cal Biz Lit blog offers its analysis of some recent uses of California’s Proposition 65, which empowers private plaintiffs to sue certain companies who are allegedly exposing persons to “chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer” or “chemicals known to the State of California to cause reproductive or developmental harm” without a “clear and reasonable warning.” The blog notes how this provision was recently used to extract settlements from manufacturers of purses made of vinyl and leather, which sometimes contain lead.
• The VLW Blog reports on the very recent Sutton v. Roth, L.L.C., No. 08-1914, 2010 WL 235143 (4th Cir. Jan 21, 2010) (unpublished), a ruling the TortsProf Blog is calling a “sequel to the McDonald’s coffee case.” Apparently, the Plaintiff alleged that when he bit into his sandwich, “the grease from the inside of the chicken sandwich spread out all over [his] bottom lip, [his] top lip, down onto [his] chin.” According to The VLW Blog, the Plaintiff sued McDonald’s and its franchisee for $2 million, but a federal district judge granted summary judgment for McDonald’s and judgment as a matter of law for the franchisee, who had to face a brief trial on the merits. (Perhaps the franchisee didn’t earn summary judgment because one of its employees remarked that “[t]his is what happens to the sandwiches when they aren’t drained completely.”). The district court did, however, grant the franchisee’s motion in limine to exclude that statement, which became one of the Plaintiff’s appellate points. Last week, the Fourth Circuit reversed both orders and remanded the case back to trial. (The opinion is here [PDF]).
• This week, Brian A. Comer at the South Carolina Products Liability Blog began the first in a series of posts on South Carolina warning law.
• The South Carolina Bar has made available online the full report of its Young Lawyers Division Social Media Task Force. Initially submitted to the Bar’s Board of Governors in November of 2009, the report was presented to the Board at last week’s South Carolina Bar state convention by our own Jim Dedman, who chaired the task force. Included in the report are recommendations on how the State Bar can use social media to better communicate with its members. You can see the full report here (PDF).