Jessica H. Meeder is a lead attorney in Morgan & Morgan’s Toxics and Environmental Group and has been litigating complex class action, multi-district, and multi-plaintiff cases in state and federal courts for nearly 20 years. She has a unique breadth of substantive experience that includes toxic torts class actions, consumer and medical monitoring class actions, pharmaceutical and medical device mass torts, civil rights class actions, sexual assault class and individual cases, and individual catastrophic personal injury cases—all of which she brings to bear in her current practice.
Jessica is particularly skilled at effectively developing, briefing, and arguing creative legal theories and approaches to help secure the best possible outcomes for her clients, and she brings a high degree of depth, nuance, dedication, and collaboration to every aspect of her work. Her passionate advocacy has resulted in numerous favorable judicial opinions, at both the trial court and appellate court levels, thus ensuring her clients a path to justice.
For example, Jessica helped secure reversal in Boler, et al. v. Earley, et al., 865 F.3d 391 (6th Cir. 2017), cert. denied. 138 S.Ct. 1294 (2018), the second class action filed on behalf of Flint, Michigan residents for their toxic and valueless water, allowing them to pursue their claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the Contracts Clause, and state tort law. She also obtained reversal in M.S., et al. v. Hamilton County Department of Education, et al., 756 Fed.Appx. 510 (6th Cir. 2018), ensuring that dozens of schoolchildren injured and killed in a school bus crash could seek uncapped compensation under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the Fourteenth Amendment.
Jessica’s advocacy also led to the courts’ denial of defendants’ motions to dismiss consumer class and medical monitoring claims in both In re: Zantac (Ranitidine) Prod. Liab. Litig., MDL No. 2924 (S.D. Fla.) and In re: Allergan BIOCELL Textured Breast Implant Prod. Liab. Litig., MDL No. 2921 (D.N.J.), multi-district litigations involving defective pharmaceuticals and medical devices, respectively. Her work in Manassa et al. v. NCAA, Case No. 1:20-cv-03172 (S.D. Ind.), helped ensure that Black student-athletes at Historically Black Colleges and Universities can proceed with their discrimination claims against the NCAA. And In In re Behr Dayton Thermal Products, LLC, Dkt. 274, Case No. 3:08–cv–326 (S.D. Ohio March 20, 2017), aff’d 896 F.3d 405 (6th Cir. 2018), cert. denied, 139 S.Ct. 1319 (2019), the district court granted issues class certification, allowing hundreds of property owners to proceed in their suit against the defendants who had contaminated their land with toxic chemicals. The opinion was upheld on appeal.
Prior to joining Morgan and Morgan’s Complex Litigation Group, Jessica opened the Washington, D.C. office of a national class action boutique firm and was a partner at a preeminent Baltimore-based law firm, where she spearheaded its national class action and mass torts practices. She previously worked for several nationally prominent defense firms, where she practiced environmental regulation and permitting, pharmaceutical defense, and general insurance defense. Her experience representing insurance companies and defending businesses across multiple practice areas has made her an especially effective advocate for her injured clients.
Jessica earned her juris doctor and a Certificate of Concentration in Environmental Law from the University of Maryland School of Law, where she was an editor for the University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class. During law school, Jessica interned with the U.S. Department of Justice in its Environmental Torts and Environmental Enforcement sections. She subsequently clerked for the Honorable Robert M. Bell, Chief Judge of the Maryland Court of Appeals, Maryland’s highest court. Jessica earned her bachelor’s degree in Comparative History of Ideas from the University of Washington in Seattle and is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honors society.
Jessica has been active in the American Association for Justice, including its Women’s Trial Lawyers Caucus, and Women En Mass, a group devoted to women mass torts practitioners. She served as Chair of the American Association for Justice’s Section on Toxic, Environmental, and Pharmaceutical Torts from 2019-2020.
Jessica is an invitation-only participant in the Duke Law Judicial Studies Center’s Diversity Conference, which develops the Guidelines and Best Practices Addressing Chronic Failure to Diversity Leadership Positions in the Practice of Law, and the Duke Law Conference entitled Evaluating the 2015 Discovery-Proportionality Amendments and Bolch-Duke Guidelines and Best Practices. She was named to The National Trial Lawyer’s Top 40 Under 40 for many years and was recently honored as one of the Top 100 Civil Plaintiff Lawyers in Washington, D.C.
After spending most of her life in Maryland, Jessica and her family recently relocated to Colorado. She’s an avid skier and mountain biker, is trying to convince herself to do more hiking, and enjoys spending time with her family and traveling.
