For as long as we have been representing drug and device companies in product liability litigation, the plaintiffs have accused our clients of “buying the science.” Sometimes, this has allegedly been by funding studies or offering support to outside researchers such as free product or access to administrative support. Sometimes, this has allegedly been by
Some of us are participating in beta testing of generative artificial intelligence (“AI”) for legal applications in the law firm environment. So far the verdict is – associates can breathe easy, at least for now. Nothing we’ve seen is capable of replicating legal research even at a first-year level of quality.
But that doesn’t mean that AI won’t impact prescription medical product liability litigation. In particular, we’re not surprised to learn that AI is being used in the context of FDA-required adverse event reporting, purported problems with which have become one of the other side’s go-to preemption dodges. Just a few examples from a simple Google search:Continue Reading Musing about Discovery and Artificial Intelligence
We’ve written about Lone Pine orders many times before. (Here and here, for example.) In brief, a Lone Pine order (so-called because that is the name of the seminal New Jersey case) requires plaintiffs to furnish medical evidence, usually in the form of an expert affidavit, showing that the plaintiff suffered from the
The legal doctrine we discuss today, the reporter’s privilege, lies outside our traditional bailiwick but is worth a quick visit. Recognized in most states, the reporter’s privilege—also known as the journalist’s or newsman’s privilege—is an absolute or conditional “protection, under constitutional or statutory law, from being compelled to testify about confidential information or sources.” Black’s
Plaintiffs love sales representatives. They love to use them to try to keep cases in state court—naming them as non-diverse defendants. They love to try to use them to get around preemption—claiming a direct duty from the rep to the plaintiff. And they certainly love making sales representative statements and conduct a focal point of
In our recent ediscovery for defendants update, we highlighted two of the twenty-eight cases we included as the most important: In re Tasigna (Nilotinib) Products Liability Litigation, 2023 WL 6064308 (Mag. M.D. Fla. Sept. 18, 2023), and Davis v. Disability Rights New Jersey, 291 A.3d 812 (N.J. Super. App. Div. March 16, 2023). Today we’re explaining why.Continue Reading The Two Most Significant New Ediscovery for Defendants Decisions
It’s been a while (since mid-2021) since we last updated our cheat sheet devoted to ediscovery for defendants. That’s because, unlike most of our other cheat sheets and scorecards, cases involving defense discovery of plaintiffs’ social media can be found in a wide variety of non-drug/device contexts – other personal injury, employment, civil rights, anything
In addition to its expected slam of the judiciary’s Federal Rules Committee largely toothless proposal for an MDL-specific rule of civil procedure, the LCJ recently did something both innovative and unexpected (at least to us) – on September 19, it proposed amending multiple federal civil rules to address privacy issues. See LCJ, “FRCP
There are approximately 1.4 million people currently serving in the United States military and 16.5 million US military veterans—and we thank them all for their service. In prescription medical product liability litigation, especially in MDLs and mass torts, that means defendants are more likely than not to run into plaintiffs who received at least some
Litigation is about the subject at hand, of course. Is the product really defective? Did it really cause the alleged injury? But litigation can also be about the litigation itself. It’s like that line in The Beatles’ Penny Lane: “And though she feels as if she’s in a play/She is anyway.” The process and its