We saw this morning the attached description of consumer awareness, and approval, of off-label use of prescription drugs. (This squib came from a service available at owner-managedcare@wire-source.com, but we weren’t sure that a link would take you directly to this item, so we’re reproducing the item here, with attribution.) For lawyers trying cases that
In an order entered on Thursday, December 7, in the Zyprexa litigation, Judge Weinstein requested further briefing on a motion to remand. Along the way, he noted his frustration with the fact that the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 allows removal only of certain class actions and mass actions, but not of all state
We’re busy guys. We can just barely manage the full-time practice of law, blogging, being decent husbands and fathers, and the rest, without writing sophisticated legal articles in our spare time. So here’s an idea for a law review article that would make a real contribution to the legal profession. We’ll never get around to
We told you that we would use this blog as a file drawer as well as a way to communicate. For future reference, here are links to all of the briefs filed on behalf of the pharmaceutical manufacturers in the Third Circuit in Colacicco: the Joint Brief for Appellees, the FDA’s amicus brief
There’s a noteworthy article in the December 2006 issue of The American Lawyer about the supposed death of mass torts. The entire article is interesting, but here’s the statistical analysis of the MDL Panel that caught our eye:
“In the panel’s first 15 years of existence, the judges heard arguments to transfer 32 mass torts
We are often mystified that courts rotely apply purportedly “general” product liability concepts to litigation involving prescription medical products without stopping to think whether these concepts make sense where: (1) the product cannot be marketed unless and until a federal agency approves them as safe and effective, and (2) because of its inherent risks, the
We love choice of law issues for federal questions in MDLs; it gives us something to think about.
Readers of this blog know the basic issue. A lawsuit is filed in federal court in, say, New York. The New York court enters an order (on a federal question) that is appropriate under Second Circuit law.
It won’t surprise anyone to learn that we’re not big fans of Judge Tunheim’s recent class certification decision in In re St. Jude Medical, Inc. Silzone Heart Valves Products Liability Litigation. Judge Tunheim adopted the distinct minority view, holding that the District of Minnesota could apply Minnesota consumer protection statutes to a nationwide class
We just read one of the more remarkable decisions we’ve ever seen, insofar as it disregards controlling precedent. That opinion is In re Medtronic, Inc., Implantable Defibrillators Litigation, 2006 WL 3420285 (D. Minn. Nov. 28, 2006). To understand how this decision puts the preemption rabbit in the hat and then makes it disappear first
Judge Rosenbaum’s decision in the Medtronic Defibrillator Litigation brought to mind medical device preemption. We’ll be doing a post on that decision in the relatively near future.
In the meantime, we’ve decided that this doesn’t have to be only our blog; it can also be our file cabinet. We can clip and save here useful