There have been two recent state supreme court decisions concerning PMA medical device preemption under Riegel v. Medtronic, Inc., 552 U.S. 312 (2008). One of them, Cornett v. Johnson & Johnson, ___ A.3d ___, 2012 WL 321094 (N.J. Aug. 9, 2012), will be the subject of Monday’s post, as our Dechert colleagues are
August means vacation time in the law business. Still, vacation does not mean (to some of us, anyway) forgetting about drugs and devices altogether. With that in mind, here are a couple of items of interest for summer reading − one’s fairly long; the other fairly short.
The long one that we recommend reading is
We have always tried hard not to inflict our vacation replays on friends. When we were kids, September often saw neighbors invite folks over for a dinner followed by a droning slide show of Summer hijinks at the Jersey shore or, for our more posh acquaintances, Myrtle Beach. We thought it was a bore then.
Remember right after Mensing when the refrain from the other side of the “v.” was that the “immunity” conferred upon generics meant that branded drugs were “safer”? But once the other side realized that generic preemption was for real, that line was quickly airbrushed from their playbook (ATLA pulled down that press release within a
Today’s post is by a guest blogger, Reed Smith’s own Jobina Jones-McDonnell.
She gets all the credit, and you can just blame Bexis.
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This post discusses a recent Minnesota Supreme Court opinion rejecting a “duty to train” claim in a non-drug/device case. The Court held that a manufacturer doesn’t have a duty to train persons how to use its products, even where the manufacturer undertook to provide training as part of the purchase price of the product at issue.
The case, Glorvigen v. Cirrus Design Corp., ___ N.W.2d ___, 2012 WL 2913203 (Minn. 2012), decided on July 18, 2012, involved an airplane crash where the pilot/owner and his passenger died. The estates of the pilot and passenger filed suit against (guess who?) the manufacturer and seller of the plane. The Minnesota Supreme Court was reviewing the appellate court’s reversal of the jury’s special verdict in plaintiffs’ favor. That procedural posture meant that, if the defendant was going to win on appeal, it essentially had to do it as a matter of law, and that’s just what happened.
The pilot purchased the plane about a month prior to the crash. As part of the purchase price, the manufacturer defendant provided a 2-day on the ground and in-flight transition training course. Transition training is standard in the aviation industry. It builds on the pilot’s previous experience and gives the pilot individualized training in the new plane. We’ve seen similar programmes offered by makers of complex medical devices.Continue Reading Minnesota’s High Court Says No “Duty to Train”
In 2008, three Florida resident plaintiffs, in a joint trial, won jury verdicts in New Jersey state court on claims that Hoffman-La Roche had not adequately warned about the alleged link between ingesting Accutane and developing inflammatory bowel disease. Two days ago, the New Jersey Superior Court Appellate Division reversed. Sager v. Hoffmann-La Roche, Inc.
With Bexis and McConnell now at Reed Smith, we’ve gained access to Reed’s database on the ubiquitous plaintiffs’ expert Dr. Suzanne Parisian. Therefore, we’re updating our last list of Parisian transcripts to include additional Parisian transcripts that are publicly available (we do not knowingly list transcripts that have been filed under seal − although that did once happen by accident; we fixed it).
As before, if we have the actual transcript of Parisian’s testimony, then the item is listed in black, whether or not it’s also available on Westlaw those also have a Westlaw citation). If we don’t have any transcript, then we’ve also listed it, but in red. A red colored entry with a Westlaw cite means we don’t have a copy of the transcript, but it’s available on Westlaw.Continue Reading Parisian Transcripts 3.0