Megan L. Rodgers

Rodgers defends clients in complex, high-stakes commercial disputes. As a member of multiple trial teams, she has experience arguing dispositive motions, preparing expert and fact witnesses for deposition and trial, taking and defending depositions and developing case strategy.

Working remotely has gone well--with some reservations. "People were concerned at first, but it revealed itself not to be a big deal," she said in mid-July as coronavirus cases surged in California. "It looks like we'll be doing this for awhile."

Clients include Expedia Inc., JPMorgan Chase and Facebook Inc.,

Among them is McKesson Corp., for which Rodgers co-leads a team handling the company's defense in multi-district civil litigation over opioids involving parallel state and federal proceedings. Plaintiffs allege that manufacturers and distributors falsely advertised and improperly encouraged the use of the addictive drug for chronic pain. There are cases filed by state attorneys general around the U.S. along with a key consolidated case in Ohio. In re National Prescription Opiate Litigation, 17-md-02804 (N.D. Ohio, filed Dec. 8, 2017).

She has cases in Washington State, West Virginia, Alaska and Ohio. Trial dates are set for October in Ohio and West Virginia; the others are in 2021. "Much of the work involves taking and defending depositions, well over 50 in each case," Rodgers said. Ordinarily she would be flying to assorted venues to do the work, but now it's video only. "The most tangible loss is the ability to build rapport by being in the same room with the subject," she said. "That's strained when you are doing it over video, though it has turned out to be easier than we'd feared. It will be interesting when this is over to see whether we go back to in-person depos only."

Rodgers is defending Expedia in a false advertising class action; she has obtained denial of certification of one broad class, the elimination of a damages claim and the narrowing of the plaintiffs' substantive claims from five claims to one. Buckeye Tree Lodge and Sequoia Village Inn LLC v. Expedia Inc., 16-cv-04721 (N.D. Cal., filed Aug. 17, 2016).

Both sides have moved for summary judgment. "Because Plaintiffs have no evidentiary support, their motion does more to prove Expedia's defenses than to support their own claims," Rodgers wrote in court papers filed with U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria of San Francisco in April.

Pandemic concerns have impacted that litigation as well. "Judge Chhabria reset an oral argument hearing two or three times, then said he'll just decide it on the papers," Rodgers said. "If anything's surprising to me, it's that we have been able to keep moving this forward despite Covid."

-- John Roemer