We write on the heels of a long weekend layered with dogs and fun. The National Dog Show, which you may have watched on TV yesterday, is held about ten minutes from our house, and a fabulous corded Standard Poodle named Joel, who just happens to be “family” (he is the sire of our gorgeous puppy, Luca) won Best of Opposite Sex two days running (and stayed overnight with us). And two out-of-town handlers we know unexpectedly needed a place to exercise their charges, so we twice got to stand in our back yard while no fewer than seven show dogs, from ten pounds to 150 pounds, swirled around us. We can’t imagine being much happier.
Layers of good mark today’s case, as well. Arevalo v. Mentor Worldwide LLC, et al., 2022 WL 16753646 (11th Cir. Nov. 8, 2022), is a decision on the appeal of a Northern District of Florida decision we liked very much. Arevalo is a pelvic mesh case. The plaintiff alleged that mesh devices implanted to treat her stress urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse caused her to undergo mesh removal surgery and to suffer a familiar litany of injuries. The plaintiff’s general and specific causation expert was the ubiquitous Dr. Bruce Rosenzweig. Among numerous other motions, the defendant moved to exclude Dr. Rosenzweig’s specific causation opinion as unreliable because Dr. Rosenzweig did not perform an adequate differential diagnosis. The court granted the motion and excluded the specific causation opinions, holding that Dr. Rosenzweig “did not explain how he systematically and scientifically ruled out the other potential causes for the plaintiff’s symptoms. Arevalo, 2022 WL 1673646 at *4. The court then granted summary judgment for the defendant because the plaintiff could not reach the jury without expert specific causation testimony. The plaintiff appealed to the Eleventh Circuit, and today’s decision is the result.
