The California Supreme Court issued its widely anticipated opinion on the learned intermediary rule the other day, and the opinion is worth the wait. Based on the oral argument (which we reported on here), we did not expect the Supreme Court to enact a fundamental change to the learned intermediary doctrine, and the Court
California Court Largely Guts Pharma Privacy Claims
Plaintiffs’ attorneys are always looking for new ways to sue pharmaceutical companies. Under the banner of “no good deed goes unpunished,” plaintiffs in California recently sued a prescription drug manufacturer after they took advantage of the manufacturer’s program to help pay for a medicine widely used to treat arthritis and plaque psoriasis. There are no
Rule 23(d) Strikes Again—This Time For The Good Guys
We brought you yesterday an example of a district court using Rule 23(d) to order a curative action vis-à-vis a putative class, but not in a good way. In that case, a medical device manufacturer initiated a recall of certain lots and published recall information for patients, in coordination with the FDA. Some enterprising plaintiffs’
California Court Gets It Wrong On The PREP Act
The PREP Act is having a moment. Congress enacted the Public Readiness & Emergency Preparedness Act (“PREP Act”) in 2005 to ensure the availability of effective countermeasures in the event of public health emergencies. The declaration of COVID-19 as an “emergency” has thus thrust the PREP Act into the limelight. Heck, when you’re a federal
California Supreme Court Grants Review on “Duty to Innovate”
The California Supreme Court has granted review in Gilead Life Sciences v. Superior Court, the case in which the California Court of Appeal ruled that the defendant could be liable to users of one drug for alleged negligence in connection with a different drug, even while admitting that the drug they actually used
California Supreme Court Hears Argument On Learned Intermediary Doctrine
We observed oral argument the other day before the California Supreme Court in Himes v. Somatics, a case that places California’s learned intermediary doctrine squarely in the spotlight. A learned intermediary case before the California Supreme Court? For your ever-vigilant DDL bloggers, that is like Thanksgiving and Christmas wrapped into one!
Who will be
To Seal Or Not To Seal, That Is The Question
It is a whole lot harder to file documents under seal than it used to be. We recall an MDL in the early 2000s where the parties filed everything under seal over the course of multiple years—litigating for the viewing pleasure of our “friends and family,” as the district judge often chided us. Times have
Enough Is Enough In Taxotere Remand Case
The unwieldy and sometimes unfair nature of multidistrict litigation has become a recurring theme on the DDL Blog. We have long commented on the “if you build it, they will come” dynamic that leads to hundreds or thousands of cases gathered, filed, and then parked in an MDL—all hoping to do as little
Sixth Circuit Affirms Exclusion Of General Causation Expert in Onglyza MDL
The MDL and state court proceedings involving saxagliptin-based diabetes drugs (such as Onglyza and Kombiglyze) strike us as the mass tort that never should have been. These proceedings initially followed a familiar model—a publication identified a signal of a risk (albeit an exceptionally weak signal), and plaintiffs’ lawyers took their cue to collect their inventories
Is Human Tissue A Product?
We don’t see many cases involving human tissue, but medical products derived from human tissue are actually quite common. Skin replacement products, tissue-engineered cartilage, compounds for treating bone fractures and tumors. Those kinds of things. Just yesterday in our annual Ten Best/Ten Worst Cases webinar we discussed a case involving transplanted human eye tissue.