Future Motion, Inc.

The Future Motion, Inc. litigation, centralized before Judge Beth Labson Freeman in the Northern District of California in December 2023, consolidates claims that the company's self-balancing electric skateboards suffer a defect causing sudden, unexpected loss of power — commonly described as a nosedive — that throws the rider forward without warning and causes serious injury. With 160 actions pending, this docket has now reached a genuinely informative stage for funders: Daubert hearings for the first two trial-selected cases were held in January 2026, the first trial was scheduled for April 2026, and a second trial followed in June 2026, alongside multiple settlement conferences before a magistrate judge.

That sequence of Daubert rulings and back-to-back bellwether trials gives a funder real, close-in-time signal on both the admissibility of plaintiffs' causation experts and how juries respond to the nosedive defect theory — a materially stronger evidentiary position than a docket still waiting on its first test case. Because settlement conferences have been ongoing in parallel with the trial track, claim valuation in this docket should be treated as actively moving, with underwriting built to be re-priced as each 2026 milestone resolves rather than held static against last year's assumptions.

For a firm holding a portfolio of Future Motion claims, incident-specific documentation — the circumstances of the fall, device firmware version, and injury severity, particularly traumatic brain and orthopedic injuries common in these incidents — should anchor both individual and portfolio-level underwriting. Medical-lien exposure tied to trauma care and orthopedic surgery should be sized alongside any funding structure. Criterica Capital's mass tort finance product applies to claims in this docket, and a structural brief tracking the 2026 trial and settlement-conference calendar is available through Criterica Intelligence.

Pre-settlement funding is a non-recourse purchase of a portion of the proceeds of a pending legal claim — not a loan. If the case does not result in a recovery, nothing is owed. Rates, fees, and repayment terms are disclosed in full in the funding agreement, which the applicant’s attorney reviews before signing. Availability and terms vary by state.