Matthew J. Malinowski

Matthew J. Malinowski focuses his practice on highly complex, "bet the company" trials and litigation. He has both defended and advocated as a plaintiff for corporate clients in serial mass tort litigation and trials, including both state and federal multidistrict litigation. He specializes in the areas of toxic torts, medical device and pharmaceutical products liability defense, multiple plaintiff serial trials and related litigation, high-stakes financial and commercial contract disputes, high-dollar lost business value and business interruption claims, and putative class action cases. He recently served as trial counsel in defense of a series of personal injury trials in Cook County, Illinois circuit court alleging various forms of cancer due to alleged exposure to ethylene oxide emissions from a medical device sterilization company. He is lead trial counsel for a large petrochemical manufacturer in multiple cases pending in state courts in Indiana, one involving serious bodily injury to a hazardous waste transporter following exposure to phenol, and the other involving high-dollar cross claims stemming from construction contract disputes.

Mr. Malinowski has a wealth of experience in all levels of high-stakes litigation, trials, and appeals. He has tried cases in state and federal courts and has handled every level of trial advocacy, from jury selection through closing. Many of his jury trials occur in so-called “judicial hellhole” jurisdictions. He has extensive experience conducting summary judgment and Daubert dispositive motions hearings, both pre-trial and during trial, in courts throughout the country.

Over the last several months, Mr. Malinowski has developed a specialty for successfully defending brand-name pharmaceutical companies against so-called “innovator liability” claims by plaintiffs allegedly injured by exposure to generic drugs. This includes obtaining pre-litigation dismissals in courts in Texas and Idaho based on the rejection of the innovator liability doctrine as a valid cause of action. (See W.D. Texas order.)

Mr. Malinowski was lead trial counsel for one of the world’s largest petrochemical companies in serial state-court trials in Iberville Parish, Louisiana stemming from a plant explosion and subsequent two-year plant shutdown. From 2017 through 2020, he actively prosecuted commercial contract claims against a large company that formerly co-owned and operated the plant under both breach of contract and contractual indemnification causes of action with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake. Trial commenced (over defense counsel’s numerous COVID-based continuance motions) in November 2020 and settled on favorable terms after three and a half weeks of a scheduled five-week trial. From 2014 through early 2017, Mr. Malinowski litigated, tried, and picked juries in multiple personal injury cases involving the same plant explosion.

In 2014, he successfully tried for a large pharmaceutical company a case on remand from one of the most active federal MDLs, achieving a defense verdict in Florida after the jury deliberated for less than 45 minutes following a three-week trial. In that same litigation, he obtained summary judgment on various different independent legal grounds in multiple cases, including specific causation, general causation, and adequacy of the drug’s warning. He has also obtained a dispositive Daubert victory excluding a serial causation expert’s opinion in its entirety as unreliable.

Mr. Malinowski regularly advises clients on various employment and labor controversies both before and after litigation has ensued. He represents corporate clients in extra-jurisdictional document production disputes involving internal employment files and other highly sensitive corporate documents and assessments. He also counsels clients on the proper handling and best practices associated with different garnishment proceedings throughout the country. He leads interviews of potential corporate witnesses both before and after lawsuits are filed to develop a detailed understanding of the underlying facts necessary to present the best possible corporate liability litigation defense.

Mr. Malinowski has been heavily involved in some of the Firm’s most notable recent cases. In 2018, he represented an industry sponsored recycling program as lead counsel in an antitrust case pending in California. He represented a large Firm client in the defense of a substantial lost business value and business interruption case stemming from a train derailment at an industrial plant site, in which the plaintiff company sought hundreds of millions of dollars in alleged damages. That trial, which was tried in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina, lasted just one out of an anticipated three months before the parties reached a confidential settlement.

Mr. Malinowski also represented a medical device manufacturer in serial litigation involving surgical mesh used to repair hernias, and was part of the trial team for the first jury trial in that litigation, which resulted in a complete defense verdict that was subsequently named by The National Law Journal as one of the year's "Top Ten Defense Wins." He has actively participated in both pre-filing and post-filing investigations and corporate witness interviews regarding a recalled product for the same client, and helped develop winning litigation strategies from the ground up based on these investigations.

Mr. Malinowski is an active member of the National Association of Railroad Trial Counsel (NARTC). He has served as a member of the executive committees on preemption and program issues for NARTC, and multiple times as a faculty member instructor for the NARTC’s Annual Trial College — an intensive six-day trial techniques course attended by attorneys throughout the country. He has also given numerous presentations on various topics throughout the country, including ethical and strategic trial strategies in high profile litigation.

Mr. Malinowski is named in the 2023 Washington, DC edition of Super Lawyers for Business Litigation. He is a member of the Defense Research Institute and The John Carroll Society. He was a summer associate at the Firm in 2001 and 2002, practiced as an associate beginning in 2003, and became a partner in early 2011.

Publications

And The Defense Wins: DRI's The Voice recognizes Matt Malinowski as district court rejects innovator claims against Firm client Novartis

Pursuing Sanctions Under 28 U.S.C. § 1927: An Underused Defense Strategy

And the Defense Wins: DRI's The Voice recognizes Matthew J. Malinowski in win before trial.

And The Defense Wins: DRI's The Voice recognizes Firm partner in summary judgment win for Novartis.

Avoiding the Sideshow: One Trial Judge's Textbook Application of Daubert to Exclude Dubious Testimony