Elizabeth J. Cabraser

Cabraser is a founding partner and chair of the firm’s personal injury and environmental law practice groups. She has been the court appointed lead or co-lead counsel in more than 80 federal multidistrict and state coordinated proceedings and currently is in leadership positions in such marquee cases as the Volkswagen “Clean Diesel” and Fiat Chrysler Ecodiesel emissions MDLs; the national opiate drugs litigation; the General Motors ignition switch defect MDL; and the California wildfire cases.

“We’re looking at new cases that so far must remain confidential,” she said, “but largely the Year of Covid has been a time of ongoing litigation and resolution challenges with our mature cases.”

The opioid litigation became an even more urgent concern because the pandemic amplified the crisis. “Opioid addictions and death numbers got worse,” she said. Cabraser represents numerous cities, counties and Native American tribes in individual lawsuits. And she serves on the Plaintiffs’ Executive Committee, the Settlement Committee and the Tribal Committee in the national case consolidated in Ohio. National Prescription Opiate Litigation, 1:17-md-2804 (N.D. Ohio, trans. order Dec. 12, 2017).

Plaintiffs claim that manufacturers overstated the benefits and downplayed the risks of opioid use and aggressively and improperly marketed these drugs systematically and repeatedly, disregarding the health and safety of their customers and the public.

In 2019, she and her colleagues proposed an inventive, never-tried system for a global settlement on behalf of the government entity plaintiffs to be known as a “negotiation class.” The novel idea was opposed by state attorneys general and shot down by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. “It was too new, too non-traditional for them,” she said. “Even so, the data we collected and the allocation matrix we devised as part of that plan is being utilized now in talks with some of the defendants.”

Cabraser also steers the class that has proposed a $2 billion settlement in litigation over the weedkiller Roundup, accused of causing cancer. In late May she argued to U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria of San Francisco that the deal has several advantages that she and colleagues hope will outweigh the judge’s objections. Roundup is made by The Monsanto Co., an agrochemical corporation acquired by Bayer AG in 2018. In re: Roundup Products Liability Litigation, 16-md-2741 (N.D. Ca., filed Oct. 4, 2016).

“This is the year we get to emerge from Covid,” Cabraser said. “We are beginning to have in-person settlement negotiations, which is a relief because of the dynamic of those informal settings. You have to see people, read their body language and establish relationships. You raise your voice, you emote, and at the end you shake hands. Now we can do all that again.”

— John Roemer