October 2015

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Just last month we collected all the favorable precedent applying impossibility preemption under Mutual Pharmaceutical Co. v. Bartlett, 133 S. Ct. 2466 (2013), to innovator drugs – although the precise subject of that post was preemption of design defect claims involving §510(k) medical devices.  We were aware of four such rulings, all in the last year or so:  Yates v. Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical, Inc., 76 F. Supp.3d 680, 686-88 (N.D. Ohio 2015); Shah v. Forest Laboratories, Inc., 2015 WL 3396813, at *5 (N.D. Ill. May 26, 2015); Booker v. Johnson & Johnson, 54 F. Supp.3d 868, 874-75 (N.D. Ohio 2014); Amos v. Biogen Idec, Inc., 28 F. Supp.3d 164, 168-69 (W.D.N.Y. 2014).

We think the argument that Bartlett intended for implied impossibility preemption extend to all drugs – generic and innovator – is painfully obvious.  The Court in Bartlett went out of its way to state, “[o]nce a drug − whether generic or brand-name − is approved, the manufacturer is prohibited from making any major changes to the ‘qualitative or quantitative formulation of the drug product, including active ingredients, or in the specifications.’”  133 S. Ct. at 2471 (quoting 21 C.F.R. §314.70(b)(2)(i)) (emphasis added).  After all, why else would the Court have specifically mentioned “brand name” drugs if not to indicate that the same preemptive logic included them?Continue Reading Another Decision Applying Bartlett Preemption to All Drugs

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Here are a couple of non-litigation related matters that we thought our readers need to know about.

First, the FDA.  We’ve pointed out before that the FDA’s “intended use” regulations for drugs (21 C.F.R. §201.128) and devices 21 C.F.R. §801.4) both contain the following potentially disturbing language:

[I]f a manufacturer knows, or has knowledge of facts that would give him notice that a device introduced into interstate commerce by him is to be used for conditions, purposes, or uses other than the ones for which he offers it, he is required to provide adequate labeling for such a device which accords with such other uses to which the article is to be put.

This language has the potential, if the FDA wanted to, to allow the prosecution of a drug or device manufacturer for an “adulterated”/”misbranded” product (for not having “adequate labeling”), merely because that manufacturer KNEW ABOUT off-label use of its products – forget promotion (truthful or otherwise). Fortunately, the FDA generally has not read this language literally.  Instead it requires prior agency approval of warnings about risks peculiar to off-label uses (we discussed that here).Continue Reading The FDA Tiptoes – and Congress Splashes Into – the 21st Century

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We have not posted for a while—that day job can really get in the way sometimes—so we agreed to tackle the ridiculously long decision in Christiansen v. Wright Med. Tech. Inc., MDL No. 2329, 1:13-cv-297-WSD, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 115601 (N.D. Ga. Aug. 31, 2015), as a bit of penance.  This act may be appropriate given the recent Day of Atonement and, much like long Yom Kippur services during a fast, the decision drags on, repeats itself, has some highs and lows, and maybe induces some confusion and a touch of a headache.  While we are not looking for a scapegoat, some of the reasoning for why the issues were presented how they were presented and why they were decided is lost on the reader, at least this reader.  (Much like the original meaning of Azazel, to where/whom the original scapegoat was to be sent by Aaron.  Or maybe not at all like that.)  As a combination Daubert and summary judgment order on a bellwether case from an MDL for a product, a metal-on-metal hip implant, for which there is considerable litigation on similar products made by other manufacturers, there will likely to attempts to extend various parts of this decision to other cases.  So, we will resort to the dreaded use of subheadings in discussing it.

Background

Plaintiff had a left hip replacement in 1995 with a device that used a ceramic femoral ball, a polyethylene liner, and a metal acetabular shell.  In 2006, plaintiff had her right hip replaced with the defendant’s product, which utilized a ball and cup each made of cobalt-chromium with no liner.  In 2012, plaintiff started experiencing pain in her right hip and, within a week, had a revision surgery where the defendant’s product was explanted (and presumably something else was implanted).  All three surgeries were done by Dr. Lynn Rasmussen, who happened to have been consulting with defendant on designing hip implants in between the second and third surgeries.  In doing the third surgery, Dr. Rasmussen observed what he called “metallosis” (sometimes “metalosis” in the records and briefs), but did not send any explanted tissue or material for pathological evaluation.  Plaintiff sued under a range of product liability theories based on the risk of “metallosis.”  Thereafter, plaintiff named at least ten experts to weigh in on causation and defect in some form or other, most of whom relied to some degree on Dr. Rasmussen’s characterization of what he saw—and defendant filed a bunch of Daubert motions.  Plaintiff filed a “motion for partial summary judgment” that preemption and the learned intermediary doctrine did not apply to her claims and, at the court’s request, the defendant filed a motion for summary judgment on all the claims that plaintiff did not drop.  An affiliated defendant also filed for summary judgment on different grounds.  There were some other motions we are ignoring, but everything was addressed in one big decision.Continue Reading Making Sense of the Rule 702 and Summary Judgment Orders in A Metal-on-Metal Hip Implant Bellwether Case

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The Pope came to Philadelphia this past weekend.  That’s not the first time this has happened (JPII stopped by in 1979), but the level of paranoia this time around led to four days of street shutdowns, parking prohibitions, and all-around dystopian security that closed roads all the way from Conshohocken to City Line Avenue to the Ben Franklin Bridge.  Commercial strangulation by the unprecedented security caused Bexis’ firm shut down its Philly office for two days.

Bexis, not being a Catholic, decided that the better part of valor was simply to get out of Dodge.  So he went to New York where instead he could follow the Devil’s Path instead.  It was good, very good – some parts considerably more perpendicular than horizontal.  The Devil’s Path and nearby areas beat the literal “hell” out of anything in Pennsylvania.  The only downside is the New York State Thruway, which in its southerly direction is prone to traffic jams for no discernable reason (of course, so is the Schuylkill Expressway in Philly, except when closed entirely for Papal visits).

While walking the Devil’s Path has its benefits, so does walking the path of compliance.  In an early blogpost on the subject of punitive damages, we collected all of the caselaw we could find where compliance with government regulatory standards precluded punitive damages.  Of all the cases we found, only a couple were from state supreme courts.  Now we have another one.  While the Pope was visiting Washington, DC, the Kentucky Supreme Court reversed a multi-million dollar punitive damages award in Nissan Motor Co., Ltd v. Maddox, ___ S.W.3d ___, 2015 WL 5626432 (Ky. Sept. 24, 2015), holding that the defendant’s undisputed compliance with (and in some ways exceeding) federal regulatory standards for automobiles precluded a finding of “gross negligence” or “reckless disregard,” which is the Kentucky standard, id. at *2, to support punitive damages.  That compliance precluded punitive damages as a matter of law even under a “slight care”/gross negligence standard is particularly notable, since many states set the bar higher for punitive damages than merely gross negligence.Continue Reading Walking the Regulatory Compliance Path Defeats Punitive Damages

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FDA-regulated products now account for an estimated one-fifth of overall economic activity in the U.S. They have also been the focus of a litigation explosion. This timely guide covers all aspects of litigation involving drugs, medical devices, vaccines and other FDA-regulated prescription products.
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