This post is from the non-Reed Smith side of the blog.

If you’re even remotely interested in the topic of preemption in Pre-Market Approved (PMA) medical devices that were used in an off-label manner, simply search this blog for our Infuse cases. There are dozens and almost all are complete victories for the defense. What occasionally survives are fraud or misrepresentation claims, although they have a tough time meeting the heightened pleading standard of Rule 9(b), or failure to warn claims where a court recognizes failure to submit adverse events to the FDA as parallel to a state law duty to warn physicians. As you’ll easily see from our prior writings, we don’t understand that parallelism at all.

The most recent Infuse victory strikes a blow at each and every attempt by plaintiffs to circumvent, dodge, sidestep, and elude preemption and pleadings standards. And with each by-pass blocked, plaintiffs’ claims had nowhere to go.

As a quick refresher, Infuse is a medical device used to stimulate bone growth in spinal fusion surgeries. It is a multi-component device that received FDA PMA approval for use in single-level, anterior, lumbar surgeries. Aaron v. Medtronic, Inc., — F. Supp.3d –, 2016 WL 5242957, *1-2 (S.D. Ohio Sep. 22, 2016). Aaron is actually a consolidation of the claims of several hundred plaintiffs who alleged they were injured by their surgeon’s use of the Infuse device in an off-label manner. Specifically, they allege the device was either implanted without all of its component parts, implanted posteriorly, implanted at multiple levels, or implanted in their cervical or thoracic spines. Id. at *2. Plaintiffs’ causes of action are fraud/misrepresentation, strict liability failure to warn, strict liability design defect, negligence, and breach of express and implied warranties. Id. Defendants moved to dismiss all claims on several grounds, including most predominantly preemption.

Before getting to the substantive analysis, the court had to consider what pleadings standard to apply. Wait. Isn’t it TwIqbal? What’s the issue? The answer is the Seventh Circuit decision in Bausch v. Stryker. The Aaron plaintiffs alleged that they did not need to plead the specific federal law or regulations that defendant allegedly violated because medical device products liability cases should have a “more permissive” review standard. Id. at *3. Plaintiffs got that idea from Bausch which held that particularity in pleading the specific FDA regulations violated was not necessary due to much of the “critical information” being kept confidential. Id. at *3-4. Many courts disagree with Bausch, including the Sixth Circuit which held in a non-medical device case that a “natural imbalance of information” does not warrant lowering Rule 8’s pleading standards. Id. at *4. The discovery process cannot be used to find sufficient factual support for plaintiffs’ pleadings after the fact. So, Aaron applies TwIqbal, not some watered down version (although the court does state that some of plaintiffs’ claims might not have withstood application of that lesser standard).Continue Reading Another Slam Dunk Infuse Win – Preemption and More