Last Tuesday, April 17, we posted about “Shouting ‘Credibility’ and Praying for Trial.” Our position was this: If the treating physician says that he already knew about a drug’s risks, or that he would not have passed on to the patient different warnings if the package insert had contained them, a product liability case is
Last weekend, we did a post on why preemption matters. The story has now evolved.
Judge Randy Wilson, in Harris County, Texas, is overseeing the Texas statewide coordinated Vioxx proceedings. Judge Wilson announced late last week (April 12, more or less) that he would be entering an order ruling in favor of Merck on
We have to admire the creativity of plaintiffs’ lawyers in learned intermediary rule cases, even while we shake our heads at their frequent departures from not just the law but fundamental logic as well. Take warning causation, for instance – we do all the time. The prescriber testifies unequivocally that I’m a responsible doc. I
Hypothesize a car crash case. The only witness says that the light was red. The party with the burden of proving that the light was green cannot possibly prevail, so there’s no reason to have a trial. That case can be decided on summary judgment, right?
Not according to the plaintiffs we encounter in drug
On Thursday afternoon, the Wall Street Journal called.
Herrmann fielded the call, because Beck had a conflict — his firm is defending Merck in the Vioxx litigation.
The reporter told us that Judge Randy Wilson is overseeing the Texas statewide coordinated Vioxx proceedings. Judge Wilson had announced that he will soon be dismissing one Vioxx
With the ALI annual meeting approaching, the new drafts of the various restatements and other projects are becoming available. We’ve been reviewing Tentative Draft No. 5 of the Restatement (Third) of Torts, Liability for Physical and Emotional Harm. Like all ALI publications, it’s available for purchase from the ALI, see: here
The thing that catches
Last week we discussed the Rowe case on New Jersey conflict of laws and its possible implications. We have now learned that last Friday, the New Jersey Supreme Court granted review in the Sinclair class action that we mentioned as probably being implicated/impaired by the Rowe decision.
We’ve previously posted on the ridiculous misjoinders frequently seen in mass tort cases. To avoid paying filing fees, plaintiffs’ lawyers join the claims of scores — or hundreds, or thousands — of unrelated plaintiffs in a single complaint. As we noted in our earlier post, courts usually see through those shenanigans and order severance and
We love the choice-of-law issues that arise in multidistrict litigation.
Are we weird, or what?
The most recent judge to wrestle with MDL choice-of-law issues is Judge Eldon Fallon in In re Vioxx Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 1657, slip op. (E.D. La. Mar. 22, 2007). In typical mass tort multidistrict litigation, diversity cases
We’ve been leery of the practice of government’s hiring private personal injury lawyers on a contingency fee basis to press lawsuits against non-resident product manufacturers from the moment that practice arose not very long ago. The government is supposed to be neutral and unbiased – something that’s impossible where attorneys conducting government business don’t get