As our slew of recent posts on standing demonstrate, plaintiffs’ lawyers continue their search for a version of federal jurisdiction that does not require anyone to have been hurt. This time, the vehicle was a box of band-aids—and the court declined to take the ride, dismissing the case in its entirety.
In Aronstein v. Kenvue
Some cases feel brand new. Others feel like a remake you didn’t ask for—but somehow know all the lines to already. This one is firmly in the latter category. For those of us who have been around long enough to remember dial-up internet and the original pedicle screw litigation, this case reads like a throwback.
If you ever needed proof that timing is everything, the Taxotere litigation has you covered.
Last month, a court denied summary judgment to the brand manufacturer, finding that it allegedly acquired “newly acquired information” post-dating Taxotere’s original FDA approval in 1996. This month, however, the very same court granted summary judgment to the
Every so often a summary judgment decision comes along that makes you wonder whether the plaintiff thought the rules of civil procedure were more like suggestions. Neal v. Smith & Nephew Inc., 2026 WL 87302 (W.D. LA Jan. 12, 2026), is one of those cases.
The facts are familiar product liability territory. Plaintiff
We litigators love a good hearing. Judges asking sharp questions, counsel delivering crisp arguments, everyone believing they’ve advanced the ball. What no one loves—especially our clients—is realizing after the hearing that confidential business information just galloped into the public record. That’s apparently what happened recently in In re Suboxone Buprenorphine/Naloxone Film Products Liability Litigation
Today we are talking about the decision in Govea v. Medtronic, Inc., 2025 WL 3467214 (C.D. Cal. Nov. 26, 2025). Plaintiff claimed the case was about off-label promotion. But thanks to the court taking judicial notice of PMA supplements, it’s mainly a case about on-label use and a plaintiff who waited far too long
Plaintiffs sometimes treat an MDL like a long layover—stretch their legs, grab a coffee, and assume that once they board the flight back to their home court, the airport rules no longer apply. Surprise! The TSA of civil procedure has a long memory, and your boarding pass still has the MDL stamp on it. Procedural
There’s a certain romance to the idea that if one courthouse door closes, another—perhaps with better lighting and more favorable precedent—must surely be open somewhere else. But as one group of particularly determined preemption refugees recently learned, civil procedure is not a game of judicial Whac-A-Mole.
The story begins in Utah, where 50 plaintiffs brought
There is a special kind of optimism—some might call it magical thinking—that animates the modern failure-to-warn claim against prescription drug manufacturers. It goes something like this: Yes, the FDA-approved label warned about the exact risk that happened to me, but the manufacturer still failed to warn.
Which is a pretty accurate summary of plaintiff’s argument
There’s a saying that “everyone is entitled to their day in court.” Fair enough. But, to have your day in court, you have to have standing. While the requirements for standing vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, all courts require a plaintiff to have suffered an injury in fact. Afterall, the entire idea