Our favorite aspect of being a prosecutor was the investigation phase. Snooping is fun. Figuring out what the crook did and how he did it made us feel like Columbo or Mannix. (Surely those references are lost on anyone under 50. Maybe we should have alluded to Poker Face.) Surveillance, telephone records, and bank accounts
We litigators love a good hearing. Judges asking sharp questions, counsel delivering crisp arguments, everyone believing they’ve advanced the ball. What no one loves—especially our clients—is realizing after the hearing that confidential business information just galloped into the public record. That’s apparently what happened recently in In re Suboxone Buprenorphine/Naloxone Film Products Liability Litigation
Another two years have elapsed (since October, 2023) since we last updated our cheat sheet devoted to ediscovery for defendants. That’s because finding good, pro-defense ediscovery decisions is a hard and time-consuming task – and getting harder. Unlike most of our other cheat sheets and scorecards, cases involving defense discovery of plaintiffs’ social media
Is it really an opposition to a motion to compel if the brief does not bemoan the plaintiff’s discovery “fishing expedition”?
We don’t think so. A license to practice law seems to mandate that the holder must use the fishing expedition metaphor whenever discovery is the topic. As a result, we were a little amused
We previously blogged about the bogus “scientific” articles in the cosmetic talcum powder litigation and the defendant’s relentless efforts to expose the likely fraud. Prior posts are here, here and here. If you do not recall the ongoing saga, here’s the quick refresher. Plaintiffs’ paid experts in the talc litigation published two articles that purported to study groups of individuals whose only potential asbestos exposures involved talcum powder. Those “studies” were based on plaintiffs in litigation where the authors served as experts. The defendant discovered that several of the subjects in the articles were plaintiffs in ongoing cases, and the defendant knew from those cases that certain subjects had numerous, potential exposures to asbestos other than talcum powder—thus undercutting the entire foundation of the articles. The defendant aggressively sought discovery about the study subjects’ identities and filed trade libel lawsuits against the authors.
Today’s decision, Moline v. Pecos River Talc LLC, 2025 WL 2898086 (S.D.N.Y. Oct. 10, 2025), involves a motion to quash a subpoena issued to Dr. Jacqueline Moline (who authored one of the papers) by Pecos River in the trade libel lawsuit brought against the other authors, Pecos River Talc LLC v. Emory et al., No. 4:24-cv-75 (E.D. Va.) (Pecos River was the entity created as part of Johnson & Johnson’s effort to resolve the talc-related claims through bankruptcy). We’ll call the defendants in that case the Emory defendants.Continue Reading Plaintiff Talc Expert Must Give Deposition Testimony in Trade Libel Lawsuit
We call a treating physician who testifies to more than just their treatment a hybrid expert. But doctors who both treat and testify can sometimes be less “Doctor Do No Harm” and more “Doctor Show Me the Money.” And when their treatment comes under a letter of protection (“LOP”), things get even murkier. Like, swampy
In what we view as a game-changing submission, on September 3, Lawyers for Civil Justice filed a 20-page analysis of no fewer than nine third-party litigation funding (“TPLF”) contracts that, one way or another, have become public. This analysis rips away the veil of secrecy that has surrounded TPLF, analyzes why and how specific TPLF
Today’s case is not a drug or device case. It’s not even a products liability case. But it does deal with sanctions against a plaintiff and his counsel for intentional spoliation of text messages—conduct that could (and undoubtedly has) taken place in prescription medical product liability litigation. So, we’ve added Pable v. Chicago Transit Authority,
Today’s guest post is from Jamie Lanphear and Daniel Kadar, both of Reed Smith, who follow product liability events in Europe closely. They are discussing the implications of recent changes on the availability of attorney/client and work product privileges—called “legal professional privilege” in Europe—not only in Europe itself, but how European restrictions might find their way back across the pond to parallel litigation in the United States. As always our guest posters are 100% deserving of all praise (and any blame) from their posts.
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If you’ve ever found yourself grumbling about the breadth of U.S. discovery, you’re not alone. For U.S. lawyers, turning over reams of company documents is a familiar—if unwelcome—part of litigation. For most of our European colleagues outside of the UK, however, the idea of broad, adversarial discovery has generally not been a concern. That’s likely about to change. The EU’s new Product Liability Directive (PLD), which the blog has previously covered here, here, here, and here will expand disclosure obligations in product liability matters across the EU, and the implications for legal privilege—especially for in-house and U.S. counsel—are significant.Continue Reading Guest Post – The New EU Product Liability Directive: More Disclosure, More Risk for Privileged Communications
This post comes from the non-Butler Snow side of the blog.
The Bair Hugger MDL has an up and down history. First, we lauded the district court’s Rule 702 rulings that led to summary judgment across the board for the defendant. But then the Eighth Circuit reversed. The cases came back to the district court