Kevin R. Boyle

A key consideration is case selection and development. Boyle absorbed those skills during the 1999-2000 clerkship he held for the late Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist at the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Working there gives you a big picture of the overall workings of major litigation, where complex issues like jurisdiction and preemption are usually found high up in the appellate system,” Boyle said. “Keeping those issues in mind keeps you from going too far out on a limb at the trial level.”

That background helped when Boyle served on the litigation leadership group for plaintiffs who sued the Mandalay Bay Hotel and MGM Resorts International case over the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival Shooting in Las Vegas in 2017 that left 60 dead, 411 wounded and a total of 867 injured.

In October 2020, on the eve of the third anniversary of the mass casualty event, Boyle and colleagues attained a landmark $800 million settlement in Nevada state court for more than 4,000 victims and their families. Sheppard v. Mandalay Bay LLC, A-18-769752 (8th Jud. Dist., Clark Co., Nev., filed Feb 16, 2018).

The deal is nearing the end of the fund distribution process, Boyle said, adding that lessons he learned in his high court clerkship informed his conduct of the litigation.

“The big picture analysis was helpful in the Route 91 cases, because MGM removed all of the cases to federal court based on a never-before-interpreted federal statute called the Safety Act,” Boyle said. “Not only would the Safety Act have provided for federal jurisdiction, it would have effectively wiped out all of the victims’ cases. So we needed to look at how the higher federal courts and the Supreme Court would have interpreted the statute as a matter of first impression, and make the best arguments possible. The case settled while those issues were pending.”

Also last year, Boyle and law partner Brian J. Panish, acting with another firm, sued a major pharmaceutical company over its alleged misrepresentations regarding claimed defects in its breast implant products. Van Vleet v. Allergan Inc., 30-2020-01143732-CU-PL-CJC (O.C. Super. Ct. filed May 26, 2020).

The complaint explains why a state court has jurisdiction to hear the matter and why federal preemption does not apply.

“In cases involving defective drugs or other mass torts, you carefully choose your venue and avoid FDA preemption, because those are issues that get to the Supreme Court,” Boyle said.

- John Roemer