Steve D’Amore

Steve’s recent representative experience includes the following:

Product Liability

• Representing a multinational medical device and health care company in state and federal proceedings involving numerous product liability lawsuits, defending preterm infant nutrition products that save countless lives. A federal MDL proceeding has been consolidated in the Northern District of Illinois and state court actions have been filed in Illinois, Missouri, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, California, and Florida.
• Defeated a bellwether case claiming that food ingredient manufacturers were liable for plaintiff’s overconsumption of sweetened foods and resulting health that Forbes described as “the most notorious illustration of how a baseless lawsuit can effectively demonize one disfavored food ingredient.”
• Prevailed on behalf of medical device manufacturer in wrongful death jury trial against claims of negligence, product liability, and punitive damages, after plaintiff abandoned product defect and punitive damages claims at trial and liability for the remaining negligence claim was substantially minimized.

Commercial

• After four years of litigation, secured a jury verdict of more than US$93M in favor of a life sciences company in a contract dispute over a pricing agreement, a verdict that at the time was the largest commercial verdict awarded in the venue.
• Obtained a US$84.5M verdict in favor of a life sciences company and against certain London-based insurers who provided product recall insurance to our client. The trial was conducted in multiple phases, and we prevailed on behalf of our client in both the liability phase, which sought rescission of the policies, and the damages phase, where we recovered the maximum amount of insurance available at trial. The verdict was fully upheld on appeal.
• Obtained a jury trial victory for a global ingredients and ethanol producer in an action for fraudulent inducement, misrepresentation, and breach of contract against an equipment provider that claimed to have developed a proprietary technology for use in the production of ethanol. After a three-week trial, the New York jury rejected the equipment manufacturer’s US$180M damages claim and instead awarded our client rescission of the agreement and the return of its payments.
• Secured a jury trial verdict of US$88M (including US$33M of interest) on behalf of two technology companies in a dispute over the right to advertise in a leading computer publication, a verdict that was—at the time—the largest commercial jury verdict awarded in the Circuit Court of Cook County.
• Secured favorable mid-trial resolution for the Corn Refiners Association and the U.S. manufacturers of high-fructose corn syrup of a high-profile false-advertising matter filed by several manufacturers or refiners of sugar and their trade associations, alleging that the defendants’ efforts to describe high-fructose corn syrup as “corn sugar,” natural, and nutritionally and metabolically equivalent to cane and beet sugar, was false and misleading under the federal Lanham Act and California state law. 

Other

• Secured victory for global insurance broker in bellwether case for the industry, in which the court dismissed a lawsuit trying to hold the broker responsible for massive business losses stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic. As reported by Law360, the decision set an important precedent defining the duty of insurance brokers generally and specifically with respect to pandemic-related business losses.
• Currently representing a multinational food processing and commodities trading company in a suite of class action lawsuits in Illinois federal court alleging that the company’s trading in ethanol and ethanol futures violated the Commodity Exchange Act and Sherman Act, in addition to several state-law claims.