How many times have you seen a lawyer end the trial direct examination (or deposition redirect) of his/her expert by perfunctorily asking, “Do you hold all your opinions to a reasonable degree of certainty?” Then there is the obligatory “Yes.” The magic words have been uttered. All is right with the world, right?
Maybe.
If
Bexis gave us a splendid Christmas present when he handed us a case that is right in our wheelhouse: a criminal matter with (literally) crazy facts and some connection to prescription drug labels. United States v. Rainford, 2025 WL 3522333 (10th Cir. Dec. 9, 2025), is a relatively rare (something the opinion itself mentioned)
The saga over the illegality defense in Kansas appears to have run its course, and as in previous chapters, the defense has prevailed. The Tenth Circuit has ruled that the defense of illegality exists under Kansas law and that it applies to product liability claims. As we reported here and here, this is the
United States v. Jackson, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 1261, 2025 WL 249109 (4th Cir. Jan. 21, 2025), is a criminal case involving off-label use of a medical device. The Fourth Circuit affirmed the conviction of a doctor for violating the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, aggravated identity theft, and related offenses. The court sentenced
The issue of the state of mind or intent of a party can play out a number of ways based on the nature of the case. In the criminal context, proof of the mens rea of the defendant is typically an element in the statutory definition of the crime. In a civil contract case, whether
When Bexis sends around his weekly list of potentially bloggable cases, we always lunge for the criminal matters, which are fairly rare. Cases brought under Title 21 bring us back to our days at the U.S. Attorney’s office, where we knew nothing of billable hours, MDL case management orders, fancy office coffee machines, or an
A few years ago, we detailed the efforts of the plaintiffs’ bar to tweak the Restatement of Torts to decrease the chance that a suit for damages would be defeated because the plaintiff engaged in a criminal act. The Restatement (Second) from 1979 called this the Wrongful Acts Doctrine, but the concept has a long
We write today with an update on a case applying the defense of illegality (or “in pari delicto”) to cut off product liability claims under Kansas law. Messerli v. AW Distributing, Inc. is the sad case of someone who passed away, allegedly as a result of inhaling intoxicating fumes (or “huffing”) from computer
We don’t write a lot on criminal cases, but published opinions in the Ninth Circuit involving the Food Drug and Cosmetic Act always catch our eye. In United States v. Marschall, No. 22-30048, 2023 WL 6135771 (9th Cir. Sept. 20, 2023) (to be published in F.4th), the Ninth Circuit held last week that some
We don’t see the defense of illegality much in the product liability space, but when a plaintiff’s claims arises from his or her own illegal behavior, the illegality defense can be a powerful tool. We mention this now because a district court in Kansas recently applied the illegality defense to dismiss a case based on