We recently received a couple of links from old friends that we thought we’d pass along. Decades ago, Bexis and some of our other bloggers worked with Peter Grossi – then a senior partner at Arnold & Porter – defending fen-phen cases in Philadelphia and elsewhere. Peter is retired now, but he still teaches law
Hundreds of Non-Resident Zantac Plaintiffs Run Out of Connecticut
Add Connecticut to the list of Zantac multi-plaintiff losses, following the Florida multidistrict litigation (our “Zantac Chronicles” series of posts, and the Delaware Supreme Court). Only this time the several hundred Connecticut plaintiffs that were dismissed never even reached the absurd causation allegations that doomed the MDL and Delaware cases. Rather, these Connecticut plaintiffs didn’t even have a means to establish personal jurisdiction over the non-Connecticut defendants they sued. Bacher v. Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 2025 WL 2463143 (Conn. Super. Aug. 22, 2025).
Continue Reading Hundreds of Non-Resident Zantac Plaintiffs Run Out of ConnecticutWhat about Plaintiff Lawyer Advertising?
As we’ve discussed earlier several times, there is a lot of lawyer advertising on television and in other media, and it can have adverse effects. A lot of it also is of questionable accuracy, giving “the false impression that they reflect medical or governmental advice,” using phrases such as “consumer medical alert,” “health alert,”
Major LCJ Submission Supporting Third Party Litigation Funding Disclosure
In what we view as a game-changing submission, on September 3, Lawyers for Civil Justice filed a 20-page analysis of no fewer than nine third-party litigation funding (“TPLF”) contracts that, one way or another, have become public. This analysis rips away the veil of secrecy that has surrounded TPLF, analyzes why and how specific TPLF
Presenting the Presentment Clause
Have you ever heard of the “Presentment Clause” to the United States Constitution? U.S. Const. Art. I §, cl. 2. While we can’t say that we had never heard of it – we are aware of presidential vetoes, pocket vetoes, and such – we had never had occasion to consider it in the context of the legal work we do defending prescription medical product liability litigation. That changed with In re Gardasil Products Liability Litigation, ___ F.4th ___, 2025 WL 2535105 (4th Cir. Sept. 4, 2025), which we recently discussed, here.
Continue Reading Presenting the Presentment ClauseOur First Shameless Plug for the 30th Annual ACI Drug & Device Litigation Conference
Several of our Reed Smith bloggers are planning to be in New York on December 3–4 for ACI’s 30th Annual Conference on Drug and Medical Device Litigation. We’re looking forward to hearing Bexis’ participation on a 30-year retrospective panel and other insightful content, while also enjoying valuable networking opportunities and hopefully the chance to connect
Jacobson Weathers Its Second Pandemic
Back in 2021, COVID-19 vaccines were becoming widely available, and we saw the likelihood of vaccine mandates on the horizon. We researched the legal implications, and it didn’t take us long to figure out that Jacobson v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905), is the 500-pound gorilla precedent in this area. An anti-vaxxer in Jacobson claimed that Due Process precluded him from being prosecuted for violating a municipal mandatory smallpox vaccination order. He lost:
[T]he liberty secured by the Constitution of the United States to every person within its jurisdiction does not import an absolute right in each person to be, at all times and in all circumstances, wholly freed from restraint. There are manifold restraints to which every person is necessarily subject for the common good. On any other basis organized society could not exist with safety to its members. Society based on the rule that each one is a law unto himself would soon be confronted with disorder and anarchy.
197 U.S. at 26 (emphasis added).
But the Jacobson gorilla is a silverback – decided well over a century ago at a time when “Due Process” often meant something much different than it does today (Jacobson was decided in the same term as Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905)). Thus we devoted our “Survival of the Vaxxest” post to marshalling all of the precedent that had followed Jacobson during those 116 years, including several more recent Supreme Court decisions: Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872, 888-89 (1990); Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158, 166-67 (1944); Zucht v. King, 260 U.S. 174, 176 (1922), see South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom, ___ U.S. ___, 140 S. Ct. 1613, 1613-14 (2020) (Roberts, C.J. concurring in denial of certiorari). We did that so that those defending vaccination requirements wouldn’t have to, since they might not have the kind of resources that we, as big-firm lawyers, do.
It is now over four years later. How well did Jacobson weather the COVID-19 storm?
As this post demonstrates, pretty well.
Continue Reading Jacobson Weathers Its Second PandemicRecent Pennsylvania Decision Suggests Partial, Longer Term Response to Our Mallory Problem
We expect that none of our readers need reminding about the disastrous Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Railway Co., 600 U.S. 122 (2023), holding that Pennsylvania could constitutionally (under the Due Process Clause, at least) deem the mere act of registering to do business in Pennsylvania as “consent” that permits the Commonwealth’s courts to assert general personal jurisdiction over foreign corporations without any other contact.
At this point, Pennsylvania remains the only state with a general jurisdiction consent-by-registration statute that reaches manufacturers of prescription medical products. Illinois recently passed a more limited consent-by-registration statute, 735 Ill. Comp. Stat. 5/2-209(b)(5), 805 Ill. Comp. Stat. 5/13.20(b), that applies only to “hazardous substances,” so our primary focus for Mallory problems remains Pennsylvania.
There’s been a Pennsylvania legal development that could help some defendants prevent Mallory inspired forum shopping. It’s a recent Pennsylvania state court medical malpractice venue decision – something that may fly under the radar for non-Pennsylvania, non-medmal defense counsel. Of course, we at the blog live for bringing this kind of case to our defense colleagues’ attention (longtime readers may remember our early advocacy of what is now called “snap removal”).
Continue Reading Recent Pennsylvania Decision Suggests Partial, Longer Term Response to Our Mallory Problem“Rapid Release” Class Action Dissolved
Plaintiffs (or more properly, their lawyers) across the country have been filing no-injury class actions against over-the-counter (“OTC”) drug manufacturers on a variety of cooked-up theories that have little or nothing to do with the safety or efficacy of these drugs. One such theory, that we have discussed several times, is that drugs that the FDA allows to be labeled as “rapid release” should be penalized, under state law, for using that purportedly “misleading” description. This litigation is based on one study, done years ago, that found that some “rapid release” products did not dissolve any more quickly (or less so) than other products not bearing that designation.
Continue Reading “Rapid Release” Class Action DissolvedOn Banning Off-Label Uses
In his latest off-label use-related law review article in 2021, Bexis pointed out:
[A]lthough states have traditionally been recognized to have broad authority to regulate the practice of medicine, aside from occasional attempts to restrict use of abortifacients, state-law interventions restricting the off-label uses of prescription medical products have been infrequent.
James M. Beck, “Off-Label