Michelle Parfitt
VerifiedAbout Michelle Parfitt
Michelle A. Parfitt is a Senior Partner at Ashcraft & Gerel, LLP and head of the firm's Mass Tort practice. Over more than thirty-eight years, she has distinguished herself as a leader in mass torts, focusing on pharmaceutical and product liability cases. She has represented thousands of individuals in state and federal courts across the country in suits against pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers, and has been appointed to numerous Plaintiffs' Steering Committees in national mass tort and complex litigations. She currently serves as Co-Lead Counsel in the Talcum Powder MDL and is regarded as one of the most knowledgeable attorneys in medical science and expert testimony preparation.
Notable case results
After fifteen years of litigation and three failed bankruptcy maneuvers by Johnson and Johnson subsidiaries, Ashcraft and Gerel attorneys R. Bryant McCulley and Michelle Parfitt helped negotiate a global, uncapped settlement of at least $5.5 billion covering approximately 76,000 ovarian-cancer claims.
An L.A. jury awarded Eva Echeverria $417 million after finding that decades of Johnson & Johnson Baby Powder use caused her ovarian cancer, though the trial judge later vacated the verdict and the Court of Appeal affirmed the vacatur.
A federal jury in Cleveland awarded $5 million to Paul Decker and his wife after finding that GE Healthcare failed to adequately warn patients about the risk of nephrogenic systemic fibrosis from its Omniscan MRI contrast agent, making Decker the first gadolinium NSF case in the country to reach a jury verdict.
Co-Lead Counsel, Talcum Powder MDL
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.
