The complaint details how the defendants misled six plaintiff families into paying $45,000 and traveling to the island of Antigua with the promise of a purported miracle treatment. Not one plaintiff victim’s condition improved, and three plaintiff recipients died within weeks of the blood filtrations. Plaintiffs further allege that, for those who survived, their cancers worsened, in part because all victims were told to discontinue chemotherapy in advance and subsequent to the ONCObind procedure.

“The defendants here misled desperate families battling advanced cancer into serving as human guinea pigs. Their conduct was grotesque and truly shocks the conscience,” Lieff Cabraser partner Robert J. Nelson said.

The complaint alleges that the defendants traded on elite credentials in an effort to lure the plaintiff families to what they intended to be their first in a chain of cancer-curing clinics. The complaint alleges that the defendants promised a procedure backed by strong scientific evidence, and no one provided informed consent for what amounted to human experimentation.

The complaint alleges that the facility itself was not equipped to treat patients with advanced cancer, needlessly increasing the plaintiffs’ suffering. As alleged in the complaint and as reported in the New York Times, the defendants went forward with dangerous blood filtration despite earlier warnings from an ExThera whistleblower communicated to the company’s executives that the filtrations were an unethical and unsafe human experiment.

“In addition to patients who underwent the procedure, we represent patients’ spouses who spent years navigating the medical system to give their loved ones the best possible chance to defeat their serious diagnoses. It is incredibly disturbing that this fraud took advantage of that very dedication,” Lieff Cabraser attorney Courtney J. Liss said.

The plaintiffs bring a variety of legal claims based on the misconduct, including fraud, battery and wrongful death. “We look forward to seeking and proving punitive damages at trial,” Nelson added.

The case is Hudlow, et al. v. ExThera Medical Corp. et al. and was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (San Francisco/Oakland).

The plaintiffs are represented by Robert J. Nelson and Courtney J. Liss.

Source/Contact

Robert J. Nelson
Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP
275 Battery Street, Suite 2900
San Francisco, CA 94111-3339
415.956.1000
rnelson@lchb.com

Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP announces that plaintiffs Gladys Rodriguez and Greg Lopez and their children LRL and LGL have filed an injury lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court against Southern California Edison Company and Edison International for losses from the 2025 Eaton Fire that occurred as a result of SCE’s alleged failure to safely maintain and operate its electrical infrastructure in Los Angeles County. The Rodriguez-Lopez family’s Altadena home was totally destroyed in the fire while they made a harrowing escape.

The Eaton Fire is the latest in a long run of devastating fires caused by electrical infrastructure improperly maintained and operated by Southern California Edison Company and Edison International (hereinafter collectively, “Edison”). It is the second-most destructive and fifth-most deadly fire in California’s history.

“We are filing this lawsuit to get justice for Gladys and Greg and their children, who lost everything due to Edison’s misconduct,” notes Lieff Cabraser partner Lexi Hazam, one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs. (Ms. Hazam served as Co-Lead Plaintiffs’ Counsel in the successful litigation against Edison relating to the 2017 and 2018 Southern California wildfires.)

The Eaton Fire broke out near Altadena, California on January 7, 2025 and consumed over 14,021 acres in Los Angeles County. According to Cal Fire, 9,418 structures have been destroyed. Tragically, the Eaton Fire killed at least 17 people, and many thousands of LA residents were forced to evacuate. Countless families are now displaced and facing an uncertain future.

The evidence indicates that Edison violated its duty to safely operate and maintain its electrical infrastructure and to ensure that its electrical equipment was prepared to handle high-risk weather events like the extreme Red Flag conditions the National Weather Service warned about on January 7th. While Edison de-energized low-voltage distribution lines in Eaton Canyon, it failed to de-energize a set of transmission towers carrying high-energy power lines located in the Canyon.

Several eyewitness accounts, videos, and photographs from Eaton Canyon show flames emerging from the base of Edison’s transmission towers, including a photo taken just six minutes after the reported ignition. On January 27, 2025, after previous denials that it had detected any anomalies, Edison revealed to state regulators that four Southern California Edison lines over Eaton Canyon saw an increase in electrical current at the time the deadly Fire ignited. An electrical monitoring company, Whisker Labs, which operates a network of sensors that are collectively able to measure abnormal activity on the electrical grid, reported a dramatic increase in grid faults in areas surrounding the Eaton Fire around the time it started. Moments before the Fire broke out, Whisker Labs data registered two electrical disruptions along transmission lines powerful enough to reverberate as far away as Oregon and Utah.

Edison’s safety violations have caused fires before, and Edison had been sanctioned for such violations numerous times. Edison’s history of causing catastrophic damage in Southern California is well-documented. In just the last decade, Edison’s electrical equipment sparked the 2017 Thomas Fire and the 2018 Woolsey Fire, both of which destroyed thousands of homes, caused billions of dollars in damage, and displaced thousands of families. As the Complaint puts it, “In conscious disregard of serious warnings, Edison, as it has before, put communities at risk by keeping their high-energy transmission towers energized. Just as before, Edison’s choices resulted in untold destruction.”

The Plaintiffs and Their Losses

Plaintiffs Gladys Rodriguez and Greg Lopez, and their six year old son LRL and three year old daughter LGL, are victims of the Eaton Fire. They lost the family home they deeply loved to the Fire. Plaintiffs, including their two young children, are displaced, grieving, and traumatized. “This has been the most harrowing experience of our lives, and we still struggle every day to try to come to grips with it,” says Gladys Rodriguez. “Greg and I are trying to stay strong for our two young children. At this point the thought of justice, of holding Edison accountable for its actions via the legal system, is what we are trying to focus on.” These plaintiffs now bring this Complaint and Demand for Jury Trial against Edison to seek damages for the harm it caused and hold Edison accountable.

Claims in the Lawsuit

The lawsuit advances claims including negligence, inverse condemnation, public nuisance, private nuisance, premises liability, trespass, and violation of multiple public utility and health and safety codes, among others, and seeks compensation for plaintiffs’ real and personal property losses, loss of wages and earning capacity, business profits, displacement expenses, and punitive damages, among other claims. Read a copy of the Complaint.

About Lieff Cabraser

Lieff Cabraser partner Lexi Hazam served as Co-Lead Counsel for Individual Plaintiffs in JCCP litigation involving thousands of plaintiffs against Southern California Edison over the role of the utility’s equipment in starting the devastating Thomas Fire and Woolsey Fire that destroyed thousands of homes in Southern California in 2017 and 2018, respectively, and the 2017 mudslides in Montecito resulting from the Thomas Fire that destroyed additional homes and killed 23 people. Plaintiffs surmounted a challenge to their inverse condemnation claim. After extensive discovery and shortly before Thomas Fire trials were to occur, the litigation entered into a settlement protocol, which has resolved over thousands of cases to date. These plaintiffs have recovered well over $1 billion to date.

Lieff Cabraser has a long history of successfully championing the rights of those injured or who have lost property and businesses as a result of fires and other environmental disasters. Over the last 45 years, we have assisted our clients in recovering over $118 billion in verdicts and settlements. Our firm helped lead litigation against BP over the 2010 Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion and oil spill, successfully representing property owners, business owners, wage earners, and other harmed parties. Lieff Cabraser was also appointed by the court to lead litigation on behalf of homeowners, businesses and employees who suffered economic injuries relating to 2015 Plains pipeline oil spill in Santa Barbara and the 2021 oil spill in Huntington Beach, and also represents plaintiffs in the 2023 Maui wildfires.

Contact

Lexi J. Hazam
Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP
lhazam @ lchb.com
415 956-1000

As with other earlier-filed suits against the social media giants, the Michigan lawsuit alleges that these companies have failed to provide adequate warnings about or in any way mitigate the harm their platforms can cause to children. The district’s complaint highlights that local students’ mental health has been severely impacted by social media, which has contributed to anxiety, depression, and behavioral problems that schools are left to manage.

Lieff Cabraser partner Lexi Hazam, who represents plaintiffs in a consolidated lawsuit against the same companies, has been vocal about the responsibility social media companies have to protect young users. She recently told Education Week, “Teachers and school administrators have been on the front lines of this crisis, and their resources are being drained by having to address the mental health impacts that these platforms are causing.”

The Lansing lawsuit is not an isolated case. According to Education Week, over 200 school districts have filed similar lawsuits, seeking to hold social media companies responsible for the negative effects their platforms have on children. These districts argue that companies like Meta and TikTok have designed their platforms to keep kids hooked, leading to addictive behavior that is difficult for students to break.

“This is about holding social media companies accountable for putting profit over the well-being of children,” Hazam said. “They’ve created platforms that are not just addictive but actively harmful, and schools are suffering the consequences.”

Hazam emphasized that “Funds meant for educational purposes have been reallocated to address the misconduct of the corporations behind Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, and Facebook. Social media companies should be held to account and provide support to schools for the harms their products cause.”

The outcome of the Lansing lawsuit — along with the hundreds of other cases filed by school districts — could significantly reshape how social media companies operate, ensuring that children’s mental health and well-being take priority over profits.

Learn more about Lieff Cabraser’s Teen Social Media Addiction Lawsuit.

About Lexi J. Hazam

A leader within the plaintiffs’ bar, Lexi J. Hazam chairs the firm’s Personal Injury and Mass Tort practice group and represents clients in mass torts cases and qui tam actions, as well as complex class actions. In addition to her leadership roles in the Teen/Youth Social Media Injuries litigation and the Abilify Gambling Injuries MDL litigation, she also served on the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee and as Co-Chair of the Plaintiffs’ Science and Experts Committee in the nationwide Benicar side effect injuries litigation. Lexi has spoken at numerous conferences on these and other drug injury cases, as well as on multiple recent California wildfire injury cases.

In 2016, Lexi was elected as Chair Elect of the American Association for Justice’s Section on Toxic, Environmental, and Pharmaceutical Torts (STEP) after previously serving as vice-chair. In 2018, Lexi was elected as Vice-Chair of the American Association for Justice’s Section on Qui Tam Litigation after previously serving as Co-Secretary.

As the article notes, for Tiseme, this work is deeply personal. In her youth, she used hair relaxers, a common practice among Black women aiming to conform to prevailing beauty standards. Zegeye recounts the discomfort and risks associated with these products, such as scalp irritation and burns. Her experiences, combined with findings from a 2022 federal study, underscore the severe health risks associated with these products, particularly as they relate to reproductive health. Representing over 8,500 injured clients, the multidistrict lawsuit seeks accountability from major beauty companies like L’Oréal and Revlon, highlighting the widespread impact of hair relaxer products and the critical need for regulatory improvements.

Zegeye’s dedication to this cause is fueled by her personal connection and professional focus on reproductive health and environmental justice. In partnership with the Equal Justice Society, Lieff Cabraser seeks to hold major beauty corporations accountable for the harm caused by their products. As the legal proceedings move forward in Chicago, this case continues to shed light on the broader cultural pressures Black women face regarding beauty standards and the significant health risks posed by products like chemical hair relaxers.

For more details, read the full article on the San Francisco Chronicle website here.

Learn more about the Hair Relaxer-Cancer Injury Litigation.

About Tiseme Zegeye

A partner in Lieff Cabraser’s San Francisco office, Tiseme Zegeye specializes in individual and class actions focusing on women’s health issues, and in employment discrimination cases. Prior to joining Lieff Cabraser, Tiseme was a Staff Attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights in New York, where she litigated to protect women’s reproductive rights. Previously, she was a Legal Fellow at the American Civil Liberties Union Women’s Rights Project in New York, where she worked to fight gender discrimination in employment, education, and housing.

Learn about the case and the August 9, 2024 claim filing deadline.

The settlement will resolve all remaining personal injury, consumer class action, and government entity cases brought in the national MDL and the JCCP in California against Altria (the earlier phase of the vast litigation ended in late 2022 when JUUL entered into four substantial coordinated settlements with all plaintiff parties).

The settlement includes over 8,500 personal injury cases, and over 1,400 government entity cases, and a massive class of consumers. “The scope of these suits is beyond vast,” noted Sarah R. London, Co-Lead Counsel for Plaintiffs in the litigation. “This settlement, in combination with the earlier JUUL settlements, marks a stunning and complete resolution of the JUUL/Altria litigation, and adds substantial additional compensation for victims and their families, get real funds to schools for abatement programs, and help local governments further prevent youth use of e-cigarettes across America.”

The New York Times recently featured the Waldens’ story in an article about CooperSurgical’s failures on behalf of hopeful parents and the effort to hold the company accountable. Read the article here.