Plaintiffs’ lawyers, now used to soliciting litigation from municipal governments, labor union health and welfare funds, and Medicare assistance plans, have been trying the same thing with Indian tribes (note: we don’t care much for “Indian” as it reflects Columbus’ 500-year-old navigational error, so we opt for the more accurate Canadian term – “First Nations”).
Going Viral − The Ten Worst Prescription Drug/Medical Device Decisions of 2020
Once again we undertake our annual task of sorting through the worst decisions of the year in prescription medical product liability litigation. These are the true superspreaders of litigation against our clients, extending the contagion of non-socially distanced litigation tourism and other infectious forms of attorney-solicited lawsuits far and wide, to the detriment of almost
Letting Defendants Defend Themselves
Plaintiffs love to tell juries how horrible the defendant’s product is. They’ll tell them how the product kills people – even though the plaintiff in the case didn’t die. They’ll try to bring up purported cancer risks although the plaintiff doesn’t have cancer. They’ll argue that, if the defendant’s device were to fail, they’d face
Defense Verdict Stands in Missouri
The same Missouri Supreme Court that couldn’t be bothered to review a 22-plaintiff consolidation that resulted in a ten-figure verdict in a talc case saw fit to review a defense verdict in a pelvic mesh case. One wonders where justice stands among that court’s priorities. At least the verdict was affirmed – if only barely,
Are Defendants Entitled to Jurisdictional Discovery?
In our personal jurisdiction posts, we’ve generally taken a dim view of plaintiffs who attempt to oppose Rule 12(b)(2) dismissal motions with requests for jurisdictional discovery. Both our experience and our perspective leads us to view such requests as overwhelmingly likely to be fishing expeditions, designed more to delay and to increase the expense of
Guest Post – Will the Supreme Court Reverse Wyeth v. Levine?
We have another guest post by friend-of-the-blog, Dick Dean of Tucker Ellis, along with his associate, Emmanuel Sanders. This post speculates on whether recent personnel changes on the United States Supreme Court might mean the end of the case we call the “number of the beast,” Wyeth v. Levine, 555 U.S. 555
No! (from) Canada
We’ve heard politicians advocate importing “cheaper” prescription medical products from Canada for years. We’ve always thought the idea was ludicrous. As we said, a little more than two years ago:
Think about it. California alone has a greater population than Canada. Any large-scale importation of cheaper Canadian drugs to the United States would almost immediately
Breaking News − Major Expansion Of PREP Act Immunity
We’ve already commented about the broad scope of tort immunity conferred by the March, 2020 Notice of Declaration under the Public Readiness & Emergency Preparedness Act (“PREP Act”), 42 U.S.C. §247d-6d. That original immunity covered all aspects of government-related or sponsored production and use of anti-COVID countermeasures. It was, as one of our colleagues put
Zitney Now a Published Decision
A little over a month ago, we blogged about the Pennsylvania Superior Court (the Commonwealth’s general intermediate appellate court deciding a test case, Zitney v. Wyeth LLC, 2020 WL 6129173 (Pa. Super. Oct. 19, 2020), that held, as a matter of first impression, that there was no separate duty for a prescription medical product
TwIqbal in Third Circuit “Parallel Claim” Preemption Cases
Perhaps the biggest conflict among the circuits in PMA preemption cases involves the extent to which plaintiffs can get away with pleading essentially nothing to support supposed “parallel” violation claims, on the one hand, or on the other must plead a particularized violation of an FDA regulation (usually a “Current Good Manufacturing Practice” or “CGMP”)