Nicole Antoine Named Litigator of the Week for Eliminating Defendant’s Key Expert

Covington senior associate Nicole Antoine was named a Litigator of the Week in AmLaw Litigation Daily for her work securing a decisive win on behalf of The Hain Celestial Group in coordinated California state court proceedings alleging that trace amounts of naturally occurring heavy metals in baby food cause autism and ADHD. Antoine led the joint defense effort challenging the plaintiffs’ toxicology expert, whose methodology attempted to amalgamate and average data across multiple defendants’ products—an approach that left no way to assess defendant specific exposure, a requirement under California tort law.

As Nicole explained, “These cases turn on a basic principle: plaintiffs must prove causation as to each individual defendant. The expert’s analysis improperly attributed one company’s data to another, crossing what the Court itself called a ‘tort law red line.’ Beyond the scientific flaws, the methodology violated fundamental causation requirements. We are grateful the Court enforced those principles here.”

In addition to Nicole, the Covington team representing The Hain Celestial Group included Michael Imbroscio, Elizabeth Fouhey, Phyllis Jones, Madeleine Dolan, Nicole Agama, and Sarah Haddon.