Erin M. Bosman

Bosman is co-chair of Morrison & Foerster's class actions and mass torts practice groups. She represents clients including Fitbit Inc., MicroPort Inc. and McKesson Corp.

She said that social distancing has changed things, but it's manageable. "The reality is that it's amazing to see how we can work from home and get so much work done remotely. After this is over, there will still be law offices, but we have found there are ways to provide excellent client services without an office."

Bosman is lead counsel for Prelude Fertility Inc., a business that runs a network of egg-freezing clinics across the country, for the fallout stemming from a March 2018 cryostorage tank failure at the company's San Francisco-based Pacific Fertility Center. The incident put at risk or destroyed hundreds of preserved human eggs and embryos.

She led the investigation and coordinated the legal team, scientific experts and crisis management teams. And she is lead defense counsel in the consolidated federal class action and more than 40 individual cases filed so far, in which clinic customers accuse the company of gross negligence in its maintenance, inspection and monitoring of the storage freezer. In re Pacific Fertility Center, 3:18-cv-01586 (N.D. Cal., filed March 13, 2018).

In June, U.S. Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Scott Corles of San Francisco denied class certification in the case, and a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel has ruled to compel arbitration. "We pleased with the decision," Bosman said. A state court decision on arbitration of some of the cases is pending. "The circuit relied on the clear terms of the arbitration agreement as to services provided." She said that what remains of the case are the plaintiffs' claims over the failure of the cryogenic tank itself and its manufacturer, Chart Industries Inc.

Class certification would not advance the goal of judicial economy and efficiency, Corles wrote, adapting many of Bosman's arguments, because individual trials would be necessary both on causation and on punitive damages against Chart.

"The court focused its analysis toward Chart, where there really are individual claims that need to be heard," Bosman said. "That's what we have claimed all along."

In separate cases over allegedly defective hip implants, Bosman is lead product liability counsel for China-based medical device developer and manufacturer MicroPort Inc. in more than a dozen suits alleging injuries from cobalt chrome modular implants that either corroded or fractured. The first of the cases is set for trial in late 2020. Laughlin v. MicroPort Orthopedics Inc., 2:17-cv-09005 (C.D. Cal., filed Dec. 15, 2018).

She also represented the company in an arbitration with a former distributor over an asset purchase agreement, winning $9.7 million in lost profits for MicroPort.

-- John Roemer