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
Surely, you’ve heard the definition of insanity as repeating the same conduct but expecting different results. You might also have heard that Einstein said it, though that might not be right – not even relatively right.
It is definitely not right for plaintiffs to keep filing meritless actions even after they keep receiving benchslaps. Maybe
”He that violates his oath profanes the divinity of faith itself.” — Cicero.
It might seem unlikely that, long ago, we noticed the above maxim inscribed on the south side of the Los Angeles City Hall while walking to our first jury trial (almost as unlikely as the fact that we were walking in L.A.). It
Here are a couple of recent favorable developments concerning the effort to require public disclosure of p-side third-party litigation funding to the same extent as defendants must disclose relevant insurance coverage. In addition to litigation-related benefits, such disclosure would (unfortunately) benefit plaintiffs by allowing them to shop for the best terms (as one can with insurance), rather than essentially have to take what they are offered in the current utterly opaque market.Continue Reading Recent TPLF Disclosure Developments
We get paranoid in our old age. We know that our clients spend a great deal of effort and money on keeping their internal data safe from criminal hackers. We assume that hospitals and other repositories of electronic medical records are doing the same. However, once such data, such as corporate trade secrets and personnel files, are turned over during discovery, we have no confidence whatever that the other side is employing similarly robust data security measures. Equally, if not more, problematic is the degree of data security maintained by expert witnesses and the plethora of other litigation-related vendors who may receive confidential material − translators, court reporting services, copying services, data processors, database and remote deposition hosts, coders, document reviewers, graphics producers, jury researchers, and trial preparation services. Similar confidentiality issues exist, although less of a concern for us, concerning plaintiffs’ personal medical records after they are collected.
Is there any way we can require them to upgrade their security?Continue Reading Using Protective Orders To Protect Against Data Breaches
We spent much of the last six years opposing the government in civil litigation. Sure, a few of the government lawyers had a certain swagger to them, but in most ways litigating against them was similar to litigating against private parties. The government hired and collaborated with many of the same plaintiffs’ attorneys that we
If Dante had practiced law, there’s a good chance he would have added a tenth circle of hell—discovery for defense attorneys. Imagine being slowly crushed under a mountain of PDFs, emails from 2007, and inexplicably sticky banker’s boxes. Let’s face it, some of us could update our bios to include—professional document archaeologist.
Discovery was theoretically
Wouldn’t it be nice if all legal disputes could be sensible? But, alas, overreaching plaintiffs make work, make motions, and often make craziness. Sometimes those overreaching plaintiffs can be the government, and that makes things even worse.
In Hayek Medical Devices (N.Am.) v. Vermont, 2025 Vt. Super. LEXIS 117, 2025 LX 12055 (Vt. Super.