Check here for our prior posts on this subject and you’ll quickly see the overarching theme. We’ve called it leveling the playing field. In any personal injury lawsuit, treating physicians are probably the most important non-party witnesses. As such, we on the defense side believe, and strongly advocate for, access to these witnesses equal to
As we mentioned some time ago that the removal statute relating to diversity of citizenship, 21 U.S.C. §1446, had been amended to add a “bad faith” exception to what previously had been a flat one-year ban on the removal of any action filed in state court – even if it wasn’t diverse (and thus removable)
The recent Thanksgiving weekend and the hearty meals that exemplify that great American holiday give us a segue to a post on food. Specifically we write today on another interesting and useful case from a federal court in California on the FDA’s primary jurisdiction over product labeling.
The food product at issue in Watkins v.
As we descend toward dotage, we find ourselves more and more often telling jolly stories that we realize, halfway-through and courtesy of the strained expressions on the poor listener’s face, we have told before. When the Drug and Device Law toddlers were underfoot, that wasn’t much of a problem; they loved hearing the same stuff
This post is not from the Dechert side of the blog, since they are involved in Reglan litigation.
Last evening, just before quitting time on the East Coast, we found the Sixth Circuit’s affirmance of the Rule 12 dismissal (that means no expensive discovery necessary) of seven Reglan cases under Tennessee Law. See Strayhorn v. Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, Nos. 12-6195, et al., slip op. (6th Cir. Dec. 2, 2013). The court also affirmed summary judgment against another set of defendants – affiliated with the original innovator manufacturer.
Because of that, we call this type of result a “one–two punch” case. That means that the plaintiffs – who took the generic version of the drug only – are: (1) knocked out of the box against the generic manufacturer by preemption under PLIVA v. Mensing, 131 S. Ct. 2567 (2011), and Mutual Pharmaceutical Co. v. Bartlett, 133 S. Ct. 2466 (2013); and (2) barred from suing the original innovator manufacturer of the drug by the very simple and basic fact that the plaintiff never used that defendant’s product.
First, the generic side:
Plaintiffs had filed the usual kitchen-sink type complaint alleging everything from design defect to consumer fraud. Plaintiffs abandoned consumer and unjust enrichment claims, but appealed dismissal of everything else. Strayhorn, slip op. at 7.
It’s late and we want to go home, but we just learned that the “one-two punch” dismissal of the plaintiffs’ claims in Strayhorn v. Wyeth (that is, generic preemption plus no innovator liability in a generic case) has been affirmed by the Sixth Circuit applying Tennessee law. More about it tomorrow, when we’ve had more
With Thanksgiving over, we move from the relatives to Relators. Not that those two topics are always so different. In some ways, they can be similar. Relatives sometimes complain. Relators always complain. Relatives can be loud. Relators blow big loud whistles. Relators hope to get a big chunk of change from their False Claims Act