Procedural considerations often decide cases. Sometimes, weighty legal issues are reached through quirky procedural routes. When it comes to whether state tort law provides medical monitoring as a remedy for people who do not have a present compensable injury, that is a legal (and policy) issue. We have written many times that we think foundational
Tea Leaves And Trucks: Personal Jurisdiction Is Back In The Supreme Court
As we write this, there is great uncertainty in the country. The intersection of state and federal law is a focus, as is the possibility that one or more of the many recent challenges to how states count votes for the presidential election will end up in the Supreme Court. The tension is palpable, in
The Other Independence Principle In Preemption
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
Another Supplement Class Action Runs Into Primary Jurisdiction
Stop us if you have heard this before. A group of plaintiffs bring a purported class action under a range of California consumer protection laws seeking damages related to the purchase of a medical product (or collection of somewhat related medical products) that they claimed failed to comply with FDA requirements. The defendants raise preemption
Partial Preemption Win On Tenuous Claims
The order of operations can matter. Back in elementary school, you may have learned a mnemonic about somebody’s aunt to help you remember the right order for doing certain math problems. In computer programming, engineering, auto repair, surgery, and a myriad of other endeavors, you can get very different results if you take the same
Short And Sweet Preemption Decision
Long ago, when we first started representing the makers of prescription pharmaceuticals, it was said that people did not tend to sue over life-saving medications. Contraceptives, pain medications, obesity medications, diabetes medications, psychiatric medications, and many others were fair game, even if the risk-benefit calculus for an individual patient might involve major benefits on one
Putting Some Teeth In Repose
We start with a disclaimer: The following metaphorical exercise is somewhat forced, but we are doing it anyway. If you are like us, then you are a few months in on a pattern of only buying groceries every week or so, perhaps supplemented by bulk deliveries of meat or seafood that you may need to
“Could This Be the ENDS of Buckman?” Mused The Vaped Crusader
In the ever-extending period of working from home and social distancing, we have spent some time watching various exemplars of the “superhero” genre and noted that the uber kitschy afterschool and weekend morning staple of our youth is not being recreated. (If Stevie Mac is from the Pleistocene, then our youth was in the
An English Lesson From An Essure Case
Not long ago, an EPL (evil plaintiff lawyer) relayed to us that, based on reading our posts, another EPL had assumed we had a particular political view. As we laughed at the notion, we pondered the issues of assumption and incomplete information. Much like the old quip about what happens when you assume, many assumptions
Robots, Recalls, and the Restatement
People have long been fascinated by robots. Way before the term was coined in a 1920 play or Isaac Asimov popularized it, there were stories about machines that acted like living things. The droids of Star Wars universe are famed for the likeability and pluck. However, there is still the specter that some of those