We recently commented on claimants who manipulate and evade the Vaccine Act by making vaccine claims, only then to make no effort to pursue them. Their play is to abandon their claims after the statutory 240-day waiting period and file lawsuits, where they stand a better chance of recovering more money. Because we think the
June 2023
Federal Court Calls Out—and Enjoins—Anti-Trans Bigotry
The case we discuss today, Doe v. Ladapo, 2023 WL 3833848 (N.D. Fla. 2023), appeared in our daily search results because it briefly addresses off-label use of prescription drugs. Invalidating a state statute that would have prohibited a particular off-label use, the court explained that “[o]ff-label use of drugs is commonplace” and the fact…
Med-Mal Plaintiff Expert Standard of Care Opinion Unnecessary Due to FDA Warnings
Law school taught us that design defect, manufacturing defect, and failure to warn are the big troika of product liability theories. Real life practice taught us that failure to warn is far and away the most common and dangerous claim we face. It is easy for plaintiffs to allege and easy for juries to follow…
Guest Post – More on Expert Gatekeeping in West Virginia
Shortly after we recently posted our 50-state survey of state law concerning expert “gatekeeping,” we received a thoughtful email from friend-of-the-Blog Tom Hurney, of Jackson Kelly, informing us that there were additional gatekeeping-related issues in West Virginia that our search – limited to cases using the word “gatekeeping” – did not reflect. His…
Medical Monitoring – 50-State Survey
As we mentioned in our recent American Law Institute (“ALI”) medical monitoring post, the other side is engaged in an ongoing attempt to ram recognition of a new tort for recovery of medical monitoring expenses by plaintiffs with no present injury (“no-injury medical monitoring” for short) through the ALI. One aspect of Bexis’ activity in opposition to that was to conduct detailed 50-state analysis of no-injury medical monitoring, once we determined that the ALI reporter’s material was both biased and incomplete. We stand behind our research and have nothing to hide. Thus, there’s no reason for us not to make this same information available to our blog readers, so that’s what we’re doing here. For long-time subscribers to the blog, please consider what follows to be an update to, and replacement of, our 2009 50-state survey on medical monitoring – ironically also prompted by ALI-related activity.
So here goes:Continue Reading Medical Monitoring – 50-State Survey
Bogus Science Leads To Federal Preemption In The Ninth Circuit
A new published opinion from the Ninth Circuit covers two issues near and dear to our hearts—federal preemption and claims based on outside laboratory testing. We care about federal preemption because . . . well, because we are the Drug and Device Law Blog, where there are some weeks when we write on preemption every…
Pro Se Plaintiff Twiqballed in D. Conn., But Claim Would Have Failed Anyway
We are back “stateside,” after a trip to London and Florence. We loved both, especially the Tower of London, Highclere Castle (used for the filming of Downton Abbey – how very cool to walk through the rooms we watched with such pleasure for six seasons) and, of course, the breathtaking David. But this is pretty…
Fortune Favors The Bold Plaintiff In Texas Personal Jurisdiction Case
Lawyers and wannabe lawyers like to use Latin words and phrases without always understanding their original meaning. English, a Germanic language according to the family tree, is peppered with words that are derived from Latin. Being the conglomeration that it is, English includes some words—egregious comes to mind—that now mean the opposite of their Latin…
Some Welcome Clarity on Preemption
Failure to Test Claim Dismissed in Texas
A little less than three years ago we posted about a decision by a federal court in Pennsylvania that twisted Texas and Supreme Court precedent to find an independent claim for failure to test under Texas law. So, we could not resist blogging about a Texas court reaching the exact opposite conclusion.
Earlier this year…