Judge Marina Corodemus (Ret.)

Concentrates practice on Alternative Dispute Resolution in the areas of:

• class actions, mass torts, products liability (special knowledge of pharmaceuticals);
• consumer fraud;
• environmental contamination (air, water, ground pollution), toxic torts;
• Aggregate civil litigation;
• Insurance dispute coverage;
• Commercial;
• Employment.

Judge Corodemus also has experience in abuse and domestic violence cases. She is the co-author of the NJ Handbook on Domestic Violence, State of New Jersey, Department of Community Services 1982. additional experience includes the following:

• 2021 Kids for Cash Cases Lucerne County, Pennsylvania: $ 4.5 million civil settlement allocation, served as Special Master against two former Wilkes-Barre judges for receiving $2.7 million kickbacks for sending Juveniles to detention centers which were privately run. Plaintiffs were juvenile defendants and their parents. Many suffered depression, anxiety, post-traumatic disorders, drug addiction and in several cases suicide.

• Admitted to the Bar of New Jersey in 1981 and to the New York Bar in 1989. I am also duly admitted to the Roll of Attorneys of this District Court.
• 1981 to 1993 – worked at the law firm of Corodemus and Corodemus, Perth Amboy, New Jersey – Partner. Handled products liability, medical negligence, serious personal injury, and environmental litigation.
• 1993 – appointed to the New Jersey Superior Court, New Brunswick Middlesex County Vicinage. Received life tenure upon my reappointment in 2000.  Retired 2004.
• 1997 – the Supreme Court of New Jersey appointed me to develop and implement a litigation program for the management of mass torts throughout the state of New Jersey. This Court’s mission was expanded to encompass other types of aggregate or multiple case litigation beyond mass torts and became known as the New Jersey Multi-County Litigation Court”.
• For the initial ten years of this Court, I was the sole “Mass Tort” state judge in New Jersey. Presided over a variety of mass torts and class actions throughout the state of New Jersey. The cases included environmental, pharmaceutical, general products liability and asbestos matters (which were assigned to and part of the Mass Tort Court when I was on the bench). Several of the matters that came before me have been recognized as landmark “mass tort” cases, including:
• The Ciba-Geigy Toms River Plant Superfund Site Litigation. This complex matter involved a large number of individual Superior Court personal injury suits—many claiming that a child developed a cancer disease—as well as several class actions seeking medical monitoring and property damages. All of the cases stemmed from alleged toxic chemical waste releases from waste storage lagoons and deteriorating buried drums located on the Ciba-Geigy chemical plant site in Toms River, New Jersey. The environmental condition of the plant and surrounding community led to the plant complex and surrounding residential neighborhoods being placed on the National Contingency Plan (a/k/a/ “Superfund Site”) List. The Plaintiffs contended that the released hazardous chemicals included trichloroethylene, tetrachloroethylene, benzene and chloroform, and their release and migration into their neighborhood environments caused among other things, a documented (and widely publicized) cluster of malignant disease occurrences among neighboring residential communities’ children; significant public and private nuisance interfering with their lives, and substantial property value diminishment.
• New Jersey’s Fen-Phen Diet Drug Litigation. American Home Products (AHP) (later known as Wyeth Pharmaceuticals) in the 1990s was located and headquartered in New Jersey and had manufactured Pondimin and Redux, both drugs comprising the “Fen” component in the widely used “Fen-Phen” diet drug combination that was popular in the late 1990s. When the two drugs were recalled and taken off the market in 1997 due to being associated with causing heart valve damage and a fatal pulmonary disease, thousands of personal injury suits were filed in New Jersey’s Superior Court alone and the New Jersey Mass Tort Court had one of the largest dockets of diet drug personal injury cases in the United States. During the original phase of this vast, long-lived litigation, e., up to the time of its national settlement, I managed the New Jersey cases which had a highly active State Plaintiffs Steering Committee (PSC) prosecuting the cases separate and apart from the federal Diet Drug MDL litigation’s PSC. In the summer of 1999, I presided over a two month long medical monitoring – consumer fraud class action trial. The trial, which was eventually stayed towards the conclusion of the Class Plaintiffs’ case in chief, is recognized for being highly instrumental in fostering agreement among the many, highly combative factions involved in the cases to meet and negotiate a $3.75 billion national settlement. The settlement was eventually executed in the related Diet Drug MDL, venued in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, which was coordinated with the Superior Court’s Diet Drug litigation. On my watch thousands of individual New Jersey Superior Court cases were resolved both in and outside of the national settlement.
• New Jersey’s Tobacco Litigation. New Jersey tobacco cases were in the vanguard of the nation’s tobacco litigation, and during my tenure on the bench tobacco litigation in various contexts and forms were continually before me.
• Asbestos Litigation. New Jersey’s “Asbestos Case Program” was one of the Mass Tort Court’s parts throughout my tenure. Under this program each and every asbestos case filed in New Jersey State court was centralized and assigned to this court. Responsibilities included administering this program’s massive docket supervising two full-time Special Masters along with their respective teams, support staff, as well as other judicial activities. To help me administer this program’s massive docket I had two full time Special Masters along with a team of support staff assigned to me which I was responsible for managing in addition to my other judicial activities.
• The New Jersey Mass Tort Court program’s docket grew requiring more than one judge to handle the wide array and volume of cases constantly being assigned to the court. Trained several judges to take on the duties of mass tort cases regionally in New Jersey: resulting in three New Jersey Superior Court vicinages: Bergen, Middlesex and Atlantic counties.
• Presiding over New Jersey’s Mass Tort Court resulted in pioneering federal state court cooperation initiatives including participation and presentation at the Association of Chief Justices and the Federal Rules Committee. Developed judicial systems coordination methods employed today where both federal MDL and State Court Mass Tort programs are proceeding simultaneously.
• 2014 – received the Middlesex County Bar’s Robert T. Wilentz lifetime achievement award. New Jersey Supreme Court Associate Justice Barry Albin was quoted as saying this work “having set the standard for how the State conducts Mass Torts cases.”
• Adjunct law professor at Rutgers Law School, symposium on mass torts, five years. Lecture before professional societies and organizations on the topic of mass torts, ethics, and aggregate litigation.
• Seven years chaired a national seminar on mass torts.
• Authored several of the original chapters of the New Jersey Mass Tort Handbook published by the New Jersey Administrative Office of the Courts.
• Member of numerous societies and professional organizations: American Bar Association, Fellow of the American Bar Association, elected member of the American Law Institute, and committee member on Aggregate Litigation Advisory Committee. Past officer and section leader of the Sedona Conference in the areas of electronic discovery, mass torts and complex litigation. Member New Jersey State Bar Association, former chair Middlesex County Vicinage Ethics Committee, President of New Jersey Trial Lawyers Association (now known as the New Jersey Association of Justice), President National Academy of Court-Appointed Special Masters.
• I have been recognized by the New Jersey Bar Association as a Women Trail Blazer for my work and accomplishments as a lawyer and jurist.
• On my retirement from the bench, I returned to legal practice, which I have limited to alternative dispute resolution engagements as a neutral and to serving various courts as a Special Master, Settlement Trustee, mediator or auditor.
• I am a certified arbitrator for the American Association of Arbitrators (AAA) and the American Health Lawyers Association and am admitted into the International Institute for Conflict Resolution. I am also a past President of the Academy of Court Appointed Masters.
• Co-authored New Jersey Handbook on Domestic Violence.

2004 – present: appointed by federal and state courts or individual parties to serve as a special master, settlement trustee or mediator in a number of federal and state court matters. A sample of appointments include:

• MDL No. 1567 (Vioxx Products Liab. Actions). Appointed Special Master by Judge Fallon, U.S. District Court for Eastern District of Louisiana to handle settlement issues.
• MDL No. 1297 (DuPuy Orthopedic Devices Products Liab. Actions). Appointed by Judge Katz, U.S. District Court for Northern District of Ohio, to handle settlement appeal issues.
• MDL No. 1335 (Propulsid Products Liab. Actions). Appointed Special Master by Judge Fallon to handle settlement issues.
• MDL No. 2235 (American Medical Systems TVM Products Liab. Actions) Appointed Special Master by Judge Goodwin U.S. District Court for Southern District of West Virginia to handle settlement issues relating to private settlement agreements.
• MDL No. 2602 (Benicar (Olmesartan) Products Liab. Appointed Special Master on August 1, 2017 by Judge Kugler, U.S. District Court of New Jersey with responsibility for handling and adjudicating applications to dismiss claims for failure to comply with the terms of a settlement agreement and making recommendation to the Court on the resolution of other motions related to the settlement specified in the agreement. The subject national settlement agreement covered 2,000 MDL cases from across the country as well as another 100 cases pending in New Jersey Superior Court in Atlantic County.
• MDL No. 2641 (Bard IVC Products Liab. Actions). Appointed Special Master by Judge Campbell, U.S. District Court for District of Arizona, to handle settlement issues.
• Fitzgerald v. Gann Law Books, Inc., CA:11-cv-04287. Appointed mediator by New Jersey District Court Judge Cox-Arleo in 2013 to mediate and resolve TCPA class action case. Matter successfully settled and concluded.
• Ephedra bankruptcy. Appointed Special Master by Judge Wolin, U.S. District Court of New Jersey.
• GAF G1 §524(g) Bankruptcy Trust Trustee. Appointed by Judge Gambardella, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge, District of New Jersey, to serve as one of several court appointed trustees with responsibility for ongoing asbestos claims resolution trust, I oversee the work of Verus LLC who is that 524(g) trust’s third-party claims administrator.
• Williams, et al. v. BASF Catalysts LLC, et al., CA: 2:11-cv-01754. Appointed Court’s Special Master and Settlement Trustee responsible for administering a Settlement Fund, a Cost Fund and other matters specified under the Plan of Distribution (“POD”) presented for preliminary approval by the Court under and pursuant to the terms of the Settlement Agreement.
• Appointed as Special Allocation Master in environmental contamination class action involving PFAS. Successfully developed allocation plan and methodology and fully allocated settlement fund among more than 700 claimants.
• DePuy Pinnacle. Appointed Third-Party Neutral to assist with fully allocating the settlement program.
• MDL No. 3081 (Bard Implanted Port Catheter Products Liability). Appointed as Common-Benefit Special Master by Judge Campbell, U.S. District Court for District of Arizona to enforce the rules, policies, procedures and guidelines relating to common benefit issues.

• New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection v. Occidental, et al. I was commissioned by presiding Judge Goldman to assist the parties’ effort to voluntarily resolve a massive environmental injury case involving chemical pollution of the Passaic River by Diamond Shamrock Chemicals Co. and others. My efforts helped foster a $355.4 million settlement agreement which was approved by the court in late 2014.
• Mirena IUD Products Liability Litig. Bergen County MCL Case 297. I was appointed Settlement Master by Judge Harz to adjudicate claimant appeals in the case’s private mass tort settlement program.
• In Re Corey Lidle On October 11, 2006 a small private airplane owned by the famed former Yankee pitcher Cory Lidle crashed into upper floors of a skyscraper located along the East River, killing Mr. Lidle along with a flight instructor in the plane with him. Numerous other people in the building were also injured. Among the issues in the ensuing litigation was who was actually piloting the plane at the time of the crash. I was jointly appointed by the courts in New York, New Jersey and California to mediate multiple, multi-million dollar lawsuits pending before the several courts following the crash. The cases all resolved with settlements.
• Jersey City water pipes-asbestos litigation. Appointed by New Jersey Superior Court to work with New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and other parties to reach settlement of the matter. Case resolved in settlement.
• Hurricane Sandy Claims. Appointed by presiding New Jersey Superior Courts to mediate disputed insurance coverage and payment claims brought following the massive property damage within New Jersey caused by Superstorm Sandy.
• Ethicon Proceed Hernia Mesh MCL and Ethicon Prolene Hernia System MCL. Special Master Appointment (2024) pending before Judge Porto in New Jersey.  Appeals category of damages determination.
• Approved Mediator by the State of New Jersey. For resolution of Natural Resources Damage Cases – appointed by New Jersey Superior Court Judges.

• Recipient of the Chief Justice Wilentz Lifetime Achievement Award, Woman Trail blazer NJ Bar Association;
• Past President – Academy of Court Appointed Neutrals (ACAN);
• President ATLA-NJ (appointed first woman President, 1992-1993);
• Best Individual Mediator, National Law Journal (2015);
• Member/certified Arbitrator for the American Association of Arbitrators (AAA);
• Approved Mediator/Arbitrator for the American Health Lawyers Association;
• Sedona Conference original Executive Board Member Working group membership;
• New Jersey State Bar Association, member, numerous committees;
• Nominated as best individual mediator by NJ Women Leaders in the Law (2016);
• Best individual arbitrator the New Jersey Law Journal (2017);
• Life Member of The American Law Institute. Recognized for 25 years of membership, being honored as lifetime member, serving on the ALI Advisory Committee on Mass Torts (2023);
• Nominated as best individual mediator/arbitrator and overall ADR provider (“Top 3”) by The New Jersey Law Journal (2023);
• Frequent Lecturer NJ ICLE;
• Past Adjunct Law Professor, Rutgers Law School (Mass Tort seminars).