The owner of a West Virginia newspaper has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, and Facebook, claiming they are manipulating the digital advertising market and making it harder for newspapers to survive.
These local newspapers say Facebook and Google are killing them. Now they’re fighting back.
“There is no financial stake large enough,” to make up for what’s happened to the newspaper industry in the past two decades, said Farrell, the lead lawyer in HD Media’s suit against the tech giants. Nationwide, more than 2,000 local newspapers have shuttered since 2004; half of all newsroom jobs have been eliminated. That tragic trend has only accelerated during the coronavirus pandemic, just when the information they provide is most needed.
Google, Facebook hit with federal antitrust suit by West Virginia newspaper publisher
“The freedom of the press is not at stake; the press itself is at stake,” lawyers Paul T. Farrell Jr., Paul J. Geller and Clayton J. Fitzsimmons wrote for HD Media.
Coronavirus stalls long-awaited day in court for historic opioid lawsuit
Courts have hesitated to move to virtual settings, in large part because the scale of the opioid litigation — thought to be the most complex in U.S. history — makes it difficult to hold a trial by video conference. The city of Huntington and Cabell County in West Virginia, concerned that delays would continue as long as the virus was rampant, pushed to move the trial to a video option but didn’t succeed.
Trial in West Virginia opioid lawsuit postponed indefinitely
A federal judge in West Virginia has indefinitely postponed a trial date in a lawsuit filed by the city of Huntington and Cabell County over the opioid crisis.
Johnson & Johnson, three other companies close in on $26 billion deal on opioid litigation
“There is no vaccine to a lifetime of opioid addiction,” said Farrell, who helped initiate the litigation from his home base in Huntington, W.Va., one of the epicenters of the crisis. “We still have an underlying opioid epidemic that has been exacerbated by the covid outbreak.”
$26 Billion Settlement Offer in Opioid Lawsuits “Not Enough” for WV
The lead lawyer, Paul T. Farrell, Jr. has not agreed to the offer. “West Virginia fully supports the national settlement on behalf of every other state,” said Mr. Farrell, who represents numerous West Virginia small governments. “It’s just not good enough for us.”
States Seek $26.4 Billion From Drug Companies in Opioid Litigation
This article was originally published in The Wall Street Journal. Higher settlement demand comes as trial dates in Ohio and West Virginia add urgency to talks
$10 Million Medical Malpractice Verdict
Riggs v. West Virginia University Health
New York Times: Opioid Settlement Talks Stumble With Trial Set for Monday
After a long day of negotiations on Friday between major drug industry corporations and thousands of local governments and states suing over the companies’ role in the opioid epidemic, talks ended with the parties — even among the plaintiffs — still far apart.