We have been following the issue of potential product liability for software, including in connection with medical devices, for a while. Much of our attention, predictably, has been on FDA regulation of device software, including issues related to resistance to hacking to obtain information or cause harm. Like here, here, here, and
If drugs and medical devices undergo a product life cycle, so do drug and medical device litigations. We are currently laboring in the relatively early stage of a Multidistrict Litigation, where the court seems terrified of making any substantive decisions. We get no rulings. Rather, the parties are forced to listen to lectures about the
In general, people do not like to have to repeat themselves. It is unavoidable. Sometimes your audience is rightfully (or wrongfully) distracted. Sometimes you aren’t that clear. Sometimes you lose your zoom audio connection and have to start over. Sometimes you don’t notice your daughter’s earbuds are in and that she’s been watching a YouTube
The complaint in Robinson v. Ethicon Inc., Action No. H-20-3760 (S.D. Tex.) was filed in 2013. To put that in perspective, Amazon’s first Alexa-enabled device, the Echo, wasn’t on the market. There’s a good chance you weren’t running your phone on 4G yet. And, if you were using earbuds with your phone, you were
As we age, we sometimes forget how things used to be. It is not just age-related deterioration of the synapses in our hippocampi. (We do question why hippocampi and hippopotamuses are the preferred plural forms these days and why more anatomic structures are not named for things like seahorses.) There is also a recency effect.
It’s football season! That means beautiful fall weather, tailgating, pots of chili, rooting your favorite team to victory, and wallowing in their losses. It’s Army v. Navy and Ohio State v. Michigan. It’s Packers v. Bears and Steelers v. Ravens. If you are a true fan of the game, it doesn’t matter that in a
We write this as we prepare to leave for an overseas trip. We have our N95s, our face shields, and our vaccine card, along with a bit of apprehension and a large measure of giddy gratitude. It has been a long eighteen months (and counting). We’ll fill in some details next time, but we’ll sign
We are watching the post-MDL-remand Bard IVC filter litigation with interest. It bears some resemblance to the Bone Screw litigation of the late 1990s/early 2000s (except in Bone Screw, there was no MDL settlement) in that the targeted defendant is engaged skirmishes across the country. In mass torts, the plaintiffs have the benefit of
We find ourselves, once again, hungry for good news. We just canceled a trip to see dear friends outside of Glacier National Park because Montana hospitals are so overfilled with anti-vax COVID patients that anyone with any medical emergency risks being turned away. Afghanistan fell to the Taliban. And, on a more “micro” level, we
If you are one of our readers who fall into the over 50 demographic, we are going to assume that in your head you read the title of today’s post in John Houseman’s voice and you tagged it with “they earned it.” That’s because you were alive in the early 1980s when if you wanted