Source: http://schachtmanlaw.com/biographical/
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 16:18:51+00:00

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Memberships: American Bar Association, New York State Bar Association.
For over 35 years, my practice has focused on the defense of products liability suits, with an emphasis on the scientific and medico-legal issues that often dominate such cases. I have tried over 60 cases, and over 12 Daubert hearings. I have briefed and argued appeals in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Oregon, and New York, as well as in the U.S. Court of Appeals. My trials, hearings, and appeals have been in cases involving prescription and over-the-counter medications, medical devices, and exposures to toxic substances from products and environmental sources. I teach a course in probability and statistics in the law, at the Columbia Law School.
For over 20 years, I have been involved in a diverse pharmaceutical products liability practice. Some of the more prominent cases in which I have been involved include estrogen and testosterone hormone therapies, PPA, Rezulin and other oral anti-diabetic medications, anti-depressants, and silicone gel.
For several years, I worked on the preparation and defense of Pfizer’s hormone therapy cases, in which women have claimed that they have suffered breast and ovarian cancers, strokes, heart attacks, emboli, and other adverse events after their use of postmenopausal estrogen and progestin medications. I was designated as trial counsel for what was to be Pfizer’s first case set for trial, in Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, in 2007 — Coleman v. Wyeth et al. After I argued the motion for summary judgment based upon the statute of limitations, the trial court entered judgment on the eve of trial. Coleman v. Wyeth Pharms., Inc., 2007 Phila. Ct. Com. Pl. LEXIS 262, at *32 (Pa. Com. Pl. Sep. 24, 2007). After I left McCarter & English, other lawyers took over the case. Coleman v. Wyeth Pharms., Inc., 2010 Pa. Super. 158, 2010 Pa. Super. LEXIS 2629 (Aug. 30, 2010) (reversing judgment entered below).
In the fall of 2003, Novartis found itself, without trial counsel, facing its first New Jersey trial in which a plaintiff claimed that her catastrophic stroke was caused by use of Tavist-D (PPA) medication. With two other partners, I formed a trial team that stepped into the breach and successfully defended the company in a jury trial in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Kronfeld v. Novartis Consumer Healthcare, Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Div., Middlesex Cty., L-003034-02 MT (no cause of action, Jan. 16, 2004) (trial counsel) (unanimous jury verdict in phenylpropanolamine case on design defect and failure to warn claims), aff’d App. Div. (Sept. 2005). See “Defenders Rack Up Wins in Nine High-Stakes Cases,” The National Law Journal (March 30, 2005).
In March 2000, Pfizer withdrew Rezulin, an oral anti-diabetic medication, from the market, after reports of severe liver toxicity. Pfizer was targeted with lawsuits around the country, but especially in New Jersey, where the manufacturer, Warner-Lambert, had been located before Pfizer’s acquisition. I served on several trial teams for these New Jersey cases.
Within the role of national trial counsel, I was responsible for managing expert witnesses, preparing cross-examinations of adverse expert witnesses, as well as planning, briefing, coordinating, and conducting Daubert challenges to plaintiffs’ expert witnesses in the breast implant litigation, throughout the country. We challenged a wide variety of expert witnesses, including scientists and physicians, testifying on behalf of the claimants, on immunology, epidemiology, toxicology, polymer and analytic chemistry, rheumatology, neuropsychology, and other areas of clinical medicine. I was also responsible for assisting public relations efforts on medico-legal issues, as well as briefing congressional leaders and their staffs about the scientific issues. I tried cases for Bristol-Myers Squibb around the country.
For over 10 years, I have represented a group of welding manufacturers that have been targeted by claims that constituents of welding fume cause brain damage. My representation involves the preparation and deployment of epidemiologic evidence in defense of these claims, in state and federal courts around the country.
For over three decades, I have represented silica sand mining companies and suppliers in trials and appeals in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware, Illinois, California, and Texas. I served as liaison counsel for the sand suppliers in the coordinated Philadelphia, Pennsylvania silica litigation. These cases typically involve sophisticated-employer defenses, as well as controversial medical causation issues.
Rickicki v. Borden Chemical, 2007 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 239; 237 N.Y.L.J. 15 (Cattaraugus Cty. N.Y. Sup. Ct., Jan. 11, 2007) (granting summary judgment and dismissing all claims on grounds of sophisticated-user doctrine), rev’d and remanded, 60 A.D.3d 1276, 876 N.Y.S.2d 791 (2009); renewed summary judgment granted (Feb. 20, 2015), rev’d and remanded, Rickicki v. Borden Chem., 159 A.D.3d 1457 (4th Dep’t 2018).
From 1984 on, I have tried over three dozen asbestos products cases and supervised hundreds of trials. I have written and argued the appeals in many of these cases. These asbestos cases have involved claims of cancer causation for several organ sites, state of the art defenses, sophisticated employer defenses, among other issues. I have instructed, guided, and supervised lawyers in many hundreds of asbestos cases, in several states. For one client, I shouldered primary responsibility for its representation before the Joint Panel on Multidistrict Litigation and the transferee MDL 875 court. I was also responsible for assisting public relations efforts on medico-legal issues, as well as selecting and preparing expert witnesses to present testimony to congressional committees and their staffs about medical issues in connection with proposed remedial legislation. The cases noted below are a sample of my experience in this litigation.
Honorable H. Emory Widener, Jr.

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