In our civil society, many non-governmental entities certify various things.  We’ve all heard of the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, which has been around for over a century.  Then there is Consumers Union/Consumer Reports – a magazine that does nothing but rate products, and recommends those it rates particularly highly rated or as providing a particularly good value.  There are a host of private standards testing organizations like the ASTM International, the American National Standards Institute, and the International Standards Organization, which in their respective fields create and maintain voluntary industrial standards for any number of commercially related operations.  These entities determine things such as what the “N95” in an N95 facemask means.  A myriad of other industry, medical, and online organizations certify and rate an almost endless variety of goods and services.  Heck, even lawyers get rated.Continue Reading Suing the Certifiers – A Dangerous Undertaking

A great woman once said “When they go low, we go high.”  Apropos of nothing in particular these days, we have been thinking about the issue of tone recently.  For instance, what is the exact line between a negative political advertisement and a positive one?  Are there circumstances where a candidate might suspend negative ads

We love to read opinions that reach conclusions in a direct and precise manner (more so when we agree with the conclusion).  There is a certain skill in using simple language to convey complex ideas.  In this blogger’s opinion, nobody does it better than Hemingway.  That’s not really going out on a limb; using a

Ponder the following:  A man attends an exercise class at a facility run by a local religious institution.  Assume that he belonged to this facility, wanted to attend an exercise class because his fitness was less than optimal, and was informed of the need to get medical advice before starting a new and potentially demanding exercise program.  He had a heart attack and collapsed right after leaving the class.  Assume that the heart attack was not a total surprise given his health, but that he had not had a heart attack before and had not informed the people running the class of any particular risk.  The class instructor rushed to the man’s aid while others called 911.  The instructor was certified in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (“CPR”) and did her best to help the man.  When paramedics arrived, they assumed care of the man, but he died despite their best efforts.

Based on these facts and assumptions, answer this question:

Who should the man’s estate sue over his death?

A) Nobody.  B) The class instructor.  C) The religious institution.  D) The entities that operate the 911/EMT system.

If you answered other than “A,” then you might need to examine your propensity to blame others.

Add in the following to the scenario presented above:  The class instructor tending to the man did not utilize an automated external defibrillator (“AED”) that she knew was present and was certified in using.  She brought the AED to the man’s side, but elected not to use it because, in her judgment, he was having a seizure and not a heart attack.

Based on these additional facts, answer these questions:

1.  Who should the man’s estate sue over his death?

A) Nobody.  B) The class instructor.  C) The religious institution.  D) The entities that operate the 911/EMT system.  E) The company that sold the AED and offered training to purchasers.

2.  If the man’s estate already sued the religious institution over his death, who should the defendant bring in via third-party complaint?

A)  Nobody.  B)  The class instructor.  C) The entities that operate the 911/EMT system.  D) The company that sold the AED and offered training to purchasers.

In Wallis v. Brainerd Baptist Church, No. E2015-01827-SC-R11-CV, 2016 Tenn. LEXIS 920 (Tenn. Dec. 22, 2016), the estate sued the church that ran the gym and then both turned their attention to the seller of the medical device that was not used.  It is often said that bad cases make bad law, but sometimes egregiously over-reaching cases can make good law.  Ultimately, Wallis fits into the latter category.  A contrary result, which would have allowed a negligence or contract claim against the seller of a device that was not used with the decedent, would have been bad, maybe bad enough to have been mentioned in our bottom ten post last week.Continue Reading Decision Limiting Duties regarding Automated External Defibrillators Does Not Shock The Conscience

Samples, samples, samples. We dare you to make it through your local supermarket or bulk supply store without finding at least one table set up asking you to sample the latest offerings from peanut butter to frozen breakfast sandwiches; from hummus to pre-made meatballs; and don’t forget the cheese. And it’s usually more than one. By the time you’re done shopping you can have eaten an entire meal – from salsa to cheesecake. Shopping alone, this doesn’t really present much of an obstacle. Shopping with children, however, and it adds a whole new dimension. Children want to try every sample. In sample size, children love almost everything they taste. So, you then get to listen to “please, please, please” for ten aisles. “I loved it.” “I promise I’ll eat every last frozen pierogi you buy.” In occasional moments of weakness, you say yes. To nobody’s surprise, however, you’re throwing away a nearly full bag of pierogis that you found wedge in the back corner of your freezer 10 months later. Because, what tasted so good in a sample size, simply didn’t have enough flavor to desire an entrée-sized portion.

That’s sort of how we feel about today’s decision, overall it tosses out most of plaintiffs’ claims – we like those samples. But, the decision is long and when you get down to digesting all of it – some of it is a bit hard to swallow.

The case is McLaughlin v. Bayer Corp, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 37516 (EDPA Mar. 22, 2016). It’s actually five cases with identical complaints all alleging injury from plaintiffs’ use of Bayer’s contraceptive device, Essure. The device is a Class III, PMA device, so Riegel express preemption and Buckman implied preemption are both viable defenses and both were raised by the defendant in response to each of plaintiffs’ twelve claims. That’s part of the problem. Plaintiffs raised novel claims to try to avoid preemption. In fact, none of the specific theories that were allowed to survive preemption have ever actually been recognized by Pennsylvania. So, we’re sure you’re expecting an Erie discussion – but Erie isn’t even mentioned in the decision. Fortunately, TwIqbal was also successfully used by the defense, so plaintiffs really do have to go back to the drawing board on their claims. We hope that after the claims are both stripped down and beefed up, the court will see it left some really indigestible morsels on the table. We’ll take the claims in the order the court did.Continue Reading A Federal Pennsylvania Decision That We Like in Small Bites

It wasn’t a complete win, but the summary judgment outcome in Rheinfrank v. Abbott Laboratories, Inc., ___ F. Supp.3d ___, 2015 WL 4743056 (S.D. Ohio Aug. 10, 2015), has to put a spring in the step of the defendants as they approach trial.  What’s left doesn’t strike us as a very good warnings case.  Rheinfrank involved claims that the antiepileptic drug Depakote caused the minor plaintiff’s birth defects.  Make no mistake about it, Depakote has a known association with such injuries.  First approved in 1983, it’s been a Pregnancy Category D drug since 1988, meaning, according to FDA regulations, that:

there is positive evidence of human fetal risk based on adverse reaction data from investigational or marketing experience or studies in humans, but the potential benefits from the use of the drug in pregnant women may be acceptable despite its potential risks.

21 C.F.R. §201.57(c)(9)(i)(A)(4).  Not only that, since 2003, this drug has carried a black box “teratogenicity” warning, as well as other quite explicit, and all-caps, language to the same effect.  For details, see 2015 WL 4743056, at *2-3.

Plaintiff-mother had used Depakote for years, through four previous uneventful pregnancies.  Id. at *1.  On her fifth pregnancy, even though Depakote came with all these warnings, she continued to take it.  Id.  Her allegations did try to change the subject, however.  In addition to claiming that the black box warning (more about that later) and all the other teratogenicity language were inadequate, she asserted that the defendants failed to warn altogether about “developmental delay.”  Id. at *5.Continue Reading Preemption (and Other Things) Defanging Depakote Claims

We’re doing our duty.  We don’t have to like it.  The subject of today’s post is distasteful, but necessary.  Here is our annual compilation of the ten worst court decisions of the year (2014) that occurred in prescription drugs and medical device products liability litigation.  These are decisions that left us shaking our heads at

If anyone is still shocked that medical device manufacturers’ sales representatives are present during surgery – don’t be.  It’s a common practice.  If you don’t believe us, see our posts here and here.  Surgeons believe manufacturers’ representatives have an important role to play in making sure the surgical instruments and the surgical team are fully prepared.  That means that reps are in the OR to stay.

With that comes the very real possibility of sales representatives being sued by plaintiffs who believe something went wrong during surgery or the possibility of manufacturers being sued for the alleged acts/omissions of their representatives during surgery.  Our earlier posts cover both situations and today we’ve stumbled upon another example of the latter — McCartney v. U.S., No. 2:13-CV-1118 TS, slip op. (D. Utah Jul. 16, 2014). Plaintiff underwent multiple surgeries involving implantation of defendant’s spinal cord stimulator.  One or more of defendant’s representatives was present during plaintiff’s surgeries. McCartney, slip op. at 1-2.  During one of the procedures, one of these reps called the plaintiff’s wife to ask about the location of the plaintiff’s pain.  Plaintiff’s wife didn’t know which leg was afflicted.  Id. at 2.

Plaintiff brought two negligence claims against the manufacturer based on its representatives being present during his surgery.  The first claim is premised on an alleged general duty of care owed by manufacturers to ensure that their devices are properly implanted.  Id. at 4.  In support, plaintiff alleged that the manufacturer’s representatives “instructed” his surgeon as to how to implant the stimulator (an act) and failed to ensure that the device was properly implanted (an omission). Id. at 6.  The difference between an act and an omission was critical to the court’s decision on whether there was a duty.  “Acts of misfeasance typically carry a duty of care while nonfeasance generally implicates a duty only in cases of special legal relationships.”  Id.Continue Reading No Duty for Sales Representatives in the Operating Room

We are sometime not sure what to make of pharmacy monographs.  You know what we mean.  Those sheets that pharmacists print out and give us with our prescriptions.  They are not drug labeling, and they are not medication guides.  They are summaries intended for patient perusal, with information taken from the labeling, but digested in a fashion intended for the lay reader.  Notably, the FDA has not asserted any prerogative to review and approve pharmacy monographs, leaving publishers essentially self-regulated under an FDA action plan.

From time to time, we are surprised when a plaintiff produces a pharmacy monograph in discovery, one that he or she received from the pharmacy and has saved.  (We have not seen the data, but we expect that people who save pharmacy monographs are the same people who have their utility bills from the mid 1990s and who know where the instructions and warranties are for all their household appliances.)  But even when this happens, we are unsure how the monographs help us.  The parties we represent – drug manufacturers – do not publish these things, and they generally don’t have any duty to warn patients anyway.
In a way, pharmacy monographs are more useful to the other side because they give plaintiffs someone else to sue – the monograph publishers.  We have commented on this before (here and here) and noted that lawsuits against publishers have met with virtually no success, and for good reason.  Publishers do not make prescription drugs; they do not sell or dispense prescription drugs; and they have no relationship or contact with the plaintiffs.  That is to say, they owe plaintiffs no duty of care, which is and should be enough to stop litigation.

Continue Reading Pharmacy Monographs and an Illusory Duty of Care