By now our beef with Multidistrict Litigations has become monotonous: plaintiff lawyers assemble enormous inventories of weak cases, then contort the bellwether pool to ensure that only their best cases go to trial. We remember an oral argument in front of an MDL judge in which we employed statistics to show that a representative MDL
Talc MDL Court Reaffirms Dismissals Based on Lack of Personal Jurisdiction
Last July, Bexis blogged about two inconsistent personal jurisdiction rulings in talc litigation. Those rulings created a personal jurisdiction split between a Missouri court and the talc MDL court on whether non-Missouri plaintiffs could sue a non-Missouri defendant in Missouri even if those plaintiffs did not use the product or suffer an injury in
Deposing Attorney’s Failure to File Appearance Does Not Preclude Use of Deposition to Support Statute of Limitations Defense
A couple of times in recent weeks we have discussed pelvic mesh cases where a central issue was whether the cases were time-barred by a statute of limitations or repose. (See here and here.) There is a reason why this issue crops up persistently. The pelvic mesh litigation started off as a mass tort
Tennessee Statute of Repose Shuts Down Pelvic Mesh Case
On Christmas Eve we blogged about a pelvic mesh case that had the veritable “mixed bag” of rulings. A bad bit in that bag was the court’s ruling that the statute of limitations had not been triggered until a doctor performed a revision operation and told the plaintiff the operation was necessary to address issues
D.N.J. Dismisses Orthopedic Screw&Plate Case/We Dole Out Top Ten Entertainments That Helped Us (Temporarily) Forget COVID
We refuse to end the year on a bad note, so we’ll talk about a case that’s good – not good enough to make tomorrow’s top-ten list, but good enough to slam the door shut on 2020 with a reasonable amount of cheer.
Vicente v. Johnson & Johnson, 2020 WL 7586907 (D.N.J. Dec. 21,
Mixed Bag of Mesh Rulings
Unlike the Big Guy tonight, we here at the Drug and Device Law Blog do not distribute bags of toys. Throughout this annus horribilis, we’ve handed out plenty of veritable mixed bags. Langner v. Boston Sci. Corp., 2020 U.S. Dist. Lexis 222125 (D. Nebraska Oct. 1, 2020), is another such mixed bag. Langner
Medical Device Amendments Do Not Preempt Sales Tax
Could a tax case ever make for interesting reading? To our surprise, the answer is Yes. In our end-of-year excavation of older cases we missed when they first came out, we unearthed Rowitz v. Tax Commisioner of Ohio, 2019 WL 7489061 (Ohio Ct. App. Dec. 31, 2019). The plaintiffs in that case applied for
Connecticut Court Strikes Failure to Warn Claims against Non-NDA Holder
It’s all too much. Mass torts, especially those involving drugs or devices, suffer from a severe case of too-muchness. Too much of what? Cases, defendants, prevaricating experts, documents taken out of context, appeals to outrage, eye-watering verdicts, etc. In the good old days when people got together physically, not virtually, for parties (especially this time
S.D. Texas Holds that Wheelchair Retailer and Delivery Companies were Innocent Sellers
Product liability plaintiffs sometimes sue every entity in the distribution chain. But in many jurisdictions under many circumstances, there is an out for nonmanufacturing defendants. That was the case in Martinez v. Medical Depot et al., 434 F. Supp. 3d 537 (S.D. Texas 2020). The plaintiff was injured when an armrest on his unmotorized
S.D. Indiana Orders New IVC Filter Trial Due to Erroneous Admission of Prejudicial Email
This is the third consecutive week a case from Indiana has been in our sights. By and large, we have been impressed with the quality of the Indiana judiciary in both the state and federal courts. One hallmark of exemplary judging is the capacity to revisit rulings and change course when necessary. We clerked for