There is a lot of scholarship and other material out there on issues having to do with federal multidistrict litigation (“MDL”) practice. See, e.g., footnote three, in the article below. But state MDL equivalents? Not so much. The Blog’s co-founder wrote a book about this a while ago, see Herrmann, et al.,
We Report on FDA-Based Failure-To-Report Claims – A Fifty-State Survey (Part 2)
Now that all three parts of our 50-state survey examining the state of state law concerning allegations that a defendant can state a common-law cause of action where the allegedly liability creating conduct is failure to make a statutorily mandated report to a governmental agency has been published, we have consolidated all fifty states under
More Updates
This post is to update our readers about subsequent developments in matters covered in some of our prior blogposts.
First, slightly over a year ago we praised Gayle v. Pfizer, Inc., 452 F. Supp.3d 78 (S.D.N.Y. 2020), a prescription drug preemption decision holding, among other things, that a plaintiff could not claim “newly
Zantac Chronicles IV – The Preponderance of Preemption
The first three significant Zantac MDL decisions, which we chronicled here, here, and here, were all issued on December 31, 2020. Today’s installment, In re Zantac (Ranitidine) Products Liability Litigation, ___ F. Supp.3d ___, 2021 WL 76433 (S.D. Fla. Jan. 8, 2021), was issued this year. For those of you who
Multi-Plaintiff Trial Issue at the Supreme Court
We’ve griped about multi-plaintiff consolidated trials for years on this blog, both generally, and in the specific context of prescription medical product liability litigation. Now the issue is before the Supreme Court in one of the most grotesque miscarriages of justice that we’ve seen – and several of us practice in Philadelphia – a
Shameless plug – Reed Smith Outlook: U.S. Health Care 2021
This week my health care colleagues authored an industry trends report highlighting many of the major regulatory issues facing life sciences and health care companies in the coming year. The “Outlook: U.S. Health Care 2021” report includes sections on post-COVID trends and lessons learned, the future of value-based care, the intersection of health care and
We Report on FDA-Based Failure-To-Report Claims – A Fifty-State Survey
Not too long ago we discussed the decision in In re Allergan Biocell Textured Breast Implant Products Liability Litigation, 537 F. Supp.3d 679 (D.N.J. 2021) (“TBI”). TBI addressed quite a few topics, one of which was the first nationwide (or close to it) analysis of whether a given jurisdiction permitted, under state
Civil Rules Committee Proposes to Toughen Rule 702
For almost as long as we’ve been blogging, we’ve complained about some courts’ flaccid and lackadaisical Daubert gatekeeping. It’s not just trial courts, but courts of appeals as well. Now it appears that the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules of the Federal Judicial Conference shares our frustrations. The Committee recently approved a couple of
Possibly Off-the-Wall Ideas Triggered by Recent Cases
One of the intriguing things about cases decided by a jurisdiction’s highest court is that pronouncements by such courts can often have far-reaching implications. Sometimes they pan out, as the application of the First Amendment to the FDA’s ban on off-label promotion seems to be doing following Sorrell v. IMS Health, Inc., 564 U.S.
Bexis Writes Another Law Review Article On Off-Label Use
Back in 1998, Bexis published the first major law review article about off-label use of drugs and medical devices and tort liability, James Beck & Elizabeth Azari, “FDA, Off-Label Use, & Informed Consent: Debunking Myths & Misconceptions,” 53 Food & Drug L.J. 71 (1998). This article came to be cited twice by the United States