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Jessie is the assistant practice leader for the firm’s Products, Torts and Insurance Group, focusing on products liability, environmental and healthcare litigation. Her products liability practice includes pharmaceutical, food, supplements, asbestos and automotive products defense. Jessie also has substantial experience with environmental litigation, OSHA matters and healthcare liability defense.

Food and Beverage: Jessie co-chairs the firm’s Food and Beverage Industry Group. She has substantial experience in successfully assisting food clients with recalls and defending food liability claims. She co-chaired the ABA’s first Food and Supplements Conference at Coca-Cola in February 2011 and presently co-chairs this subcommittee.

Products Liability and Mass Torts: Jessie works on class actions and MDLs for various types of product cases and has experience with recalls under the FDA's watch. She was national co-counsel for an automotive manufacturing company in an MDL involving multiple class actions. She serves on the expert team in a pharmaceutical company's litigation. She served on the national expert team for diet drug litigation and retained and worked with experts for trials nationwide. She also has conducted quality assurance audits of trial team preparations nationwide for MDL cases set for trial. She speaks at national conferences on products liability issues. She is currently defending an international product manufacturer against two class actions including product liability and Magnuson-Moss warranty claims.

Environmental and Mass Torts: Jessie has vast experience in environmental litigation, including water rights, mass torts and contamination cases. She recently was granted summary judgment for a large manufacturer against claims that its products contained asbestos that harmed the plaintiff in a suit involving more than 30 defendants. She is lead counsel in a natural gas price hedging dispute. She assists clients with employee injury/death investigations and OSHA investigations/citations. She also served as lead counsel in a water storage fee case against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, a case of first impression nationwide. She successfully obtained summary judgment on the key issue in the case. She defended a communications company in contamination litigation that involved third party complaints against nearly a dozen defendants. She also handles other mass tort actions, including toxic torts. Her experience encompasses actions involving the U.S. EPA, TDEC, OSHA, citizen suits and private rights of action.

Healthcare: Jessie serves as litigation counsel in professional liability actions involving catastrophic personal injury and wrongful death claims for a major academic medical center and one of the largest single-specialty medical groups in the southeastern United States.

Representative Matters include:

Pharmaceutical company – diet drug litigation: Jessie served on the national expert team and conducted quality assurance reviews of MDL cases remanded for trial nationwide.
Pharmaceutical company – drug litigation: Jessie serves on the expert team.
Major food company – food contamination: Jessie defended a claim that a food product allegedly caused bacterial meningitis in an infant.
Automotive manufacturing – odometer fraud litigation: Jessie serves as co-counsel of an MDL consolidating multiple class actions involving odometer claims.
Town of Smyrna – a case of first impression: Jessie obtained summary judgment against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers regarding water storage fees.
Major food company – Jessie assisted a company with a recall involving peanut butter products.

Jessie served on a panel of the Network of Trial Law Firms titled, "Trial Lawyers Facing the New Decade." To view the presentation, please click here.