The district judge in the In re Zimmer Nexgen Knee Implant Products Liability Litigation MDL issued a summary judgment order in October 2016 that we called “the best Wisconsin law decision we have ever seen.” What was the reason for our unusually unbridled enthusiasm? The district judge debunked the idea that the learned
“A” Is For Preemption
The Seventh Circuit taught us recently that the letter “A” is a powerful thing. Of course, we already knew that a well-placed A can convert the ordinary (“typical”) into the extraordinary (“atypical”), the melodic (“tonal”) into the dissonant (“atonal”), and the virtuous (“moral”) into the indifferent (“amoral”). Adding a single A to a Scrabble board
California Class Action Update
Class actions hold our interest, even though we do not see them all that often anymore in the drug and medical device space. Maybe we are the rubbernecking motorists who can’t resist slowing down to gaze at someone else’s fender bender. Maybe we are the children at the zoo who rush to the reptile house
As If Discovery Were Not Difficult Enough, Now This
When Congress enacted HIPAA and its Privacy Rule in the mid-1990s, it was a big deal. Healthcare providers surely protected patient privacy in the pre-HIPAA days, but the federal statute gave them a standard set of rules with which to comply and a uniform referent against which to gauge their privacy practices. All told, HIPAA’s
Dental Device Class Action Comes Back To Bite Plaintiffs
You don’t see class actions going to trial very often, but that is what happened in Patricia A. Murray Dental Corp. v. Dentsply International, Inc., and the defendant device manufacturer came away with a defense verdict that binds the class. The California Court of Appeal’s opinion affirming that result is the topic of today’s
Breaking News: TH v. Novartis – California Supreme Court Recognizes New Tort Duties as Traditional Limits Slide into the Sea
We posted our 2017 “Worst 10 decisions” list a day too soon, because the California Supreme Court issued its anticipated decision in TH v. Novartis, No. S233898, slip op. (Cal. Dec. 22, 2017) today, and if it is not the worst drug and device decision of 2017, it is awfully close. With an emphasis
Ninth Circuit Undoes Incretin Implied Preemption Ruling – For Now
We reported two weeks ago on an order favoring implied preemption in an innovator prescription drug case coming out of the Eliquis MDL in New York. One week after that order, the Ninth Circuit filed an unpublished opinion reversing an order from the In re Incretin-Based Therapies MDL in the Southern District of California that
Still No “Newly Acquired Information,” Eliquis Claims Still Preempted
The defendants in the Eliquis MDL have turned somewhat of a preemption hat trick. The latest order is In re Eliquis (Apixaban) Prods. Liab. Litig., No 17-md-2754 (S.D.N.Y. Nov. 29, 2017), where the district court dismissed twenty-four cases newly transferred into that MDL. We will explain why in a moment, but first a little
More of What You Will See on Personal Jurisdiction Following BMS
We wrote a few months ago about what you will see from the plaintiffs’ side as they try to evade the Supreme Court’s opinion in BMS v. Superior Court. That opinion has combined with Bauman to reset personal jurisdiction and restore fairness to a system that had gotten out of whack, particularly in the
Here Is Why The False Claims Act Is An “Awkward Vehicle” In Pharma Cases
We have always thought that the False Claims Act resides in some sort of alternate universe when it comes to pharmaceutical products. The central concept behind the FCA is easy: The FCA penalizes anyone who presents, or causes to be presented, to the federal government “a false or fraudulent claim for payment or approval.” 31