We made a statement in our recent Age of Reptiles post concerning the decision, Fitzpatrick v. Wendy’s Old Fashioned Hamburgers, ___ N.E.3d ___, 2019 WL 5792847 (Mass. App. Nov. 7, 2019), that we had to check. We described Fitzpatrick as “the first appellate case we know of that has specifically addressed and declared certain
2019
District of Nevada Dismisses Gadolinium Claim, Albeit Without Prejudice, on Personal Jurisdiction and Preemption Grounds
Guest Post – Paint It Black: The Ninth Circuit OKs RICO Liability For Failure To Warn About Drug Safety Risks
Today’s guest post, about a bottom-ten RICO third-party payor action from (no surprise) the Ninth Circuit, is by long-time friend of the blog (and blogger in his own right), Jonah M. Knobler, of Patterson Belknap. We named one similar case, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc. v. Pfizer, Inc., 712 F.3d…
MDL Judge Calls out Plaintiffs’ Counsel − Not Acting in Clients’ Best Interests
Here is an interesting order that recently emerged from the Benicar multi-district litigation. Certain plaintiffs’ counsel (identified by name in the order) represent about 450 “plaintiffs who have settled their claims against defendants in exchange for a monetary payment.” In re Benicar (Olmesartan) Products Liability Litigation, 2019 WL 6271285, at *1 (D.N.J. Nov. 22,…
Could FDA Warning Letters Be Final Agency Action?
You’ll find any number of places on this blog where we argue emphatically that FDA warning letters are far from final and therefore should not be able to be used in products liability actions. See here for our latest post on the issue (which also collects our other posts). These posts cite case law, FDA…
Wrong Court and Wrong-er Reasoning − Ignoring 75 Years of Controlling Precedent
The opinion, Schrecengost v. Coloplast Corp., 2019 WL 6465398 (W.D. Pa. Dec. 2, 2019), recently “predicted” that Pennsylvania would allow strict liability design and warning defect claims in cases involving prescription medical products. Id. at *11-13. In so doing Schrecengost was not only wrong, but loud wrong. First, without even a serious discussion, Schrecengost…
Statute That Overturned Weeks Actually Overturned Weeks
For a few years, it seemed like we were blogging about the Weeks case every few months. Beyond providing an opportunity for temporal quippery, Weeks caught our attention because it was one of the holdout cases against the tide of cases rejecting Conte, the crappy California case that invented innovator liability. After the…
A Short Thank You to ALI Members Who Responded to Our Prior Post
We appreciate the emails in support of the position we took in our October 14 post on Apportionment Misadventures that we have received from ALI members. We have just reviewed “Council Draft No. 6,” (we can’t link to it as per ALI guidelines) and are pleased to report that the section we criticized has been…
Michigan Court Rules Vaccination in Best Interest of Child
The Holiday season is also the cinema season. We’re giddy about movies right now. Today sees the release of the trailer for No Time to Die, the 25th Bond film (counting only the “official” EON productions – sorry about that, Casino Royale (1967) and Never Say Never Again (1983)). No Time to Die (hereinafter…
When California Law Doesn’t Apply
We’d like the answer to that question to be – most of the time. But that’s too much to hope for. After all, lawsuits are brought in California. With its plaintiff-friendly laws, indeed, California is an often sought after venue by mass tort products liability plaintiffs. But, according to a recent California appellate court…