A post-sale duty to warn is almost oxymoronic. If you think about a typical warnings case, the focus is on whether the manufacturer/seller had notice of a potential risk before the product left its control (or prescribed to the plaintiff), and if so, whether that risk was adequately conveyed to the plaintiff. The question we
Tipping the Scales on Failure to Report in Missouri
In our 50-state survey on failure to report claims, we described Missouri as an “up in the air” state, with courts on both sides of the issue failing to cite or consider prior significant precedent. Now the Eastern District of Missouri has weighed in bringing the issue a little closer to the ground.
In Schnulle…
FDA Reporting and Consumer Protection Issues Certified to Connecticut Supreme Court
As we discussed in our recent 50-state survey on failure-to-report claims, plaintiff-side allegations seeking to predicate “warning” liability on a defendant’s allegedly failing to comply with FDCA adverse event reporting claims are “relatively new.” That’s because, like so many other novel claims we’ve seen lately, it’s a transparent dodge to avoid preemption. We said…
Foreseeing Risks With Off-Label Use
Atkinson v. Luitpold – Part III
When we last left our story, plaintiffs had lost their fight to have Pennsylvania law apply to residents of Texas ( Atkinson I) and lost a chunk of their claims as barred by the Texas statute prohibiting failure to warn claims where a drug’s label has been approved by FDA and comment k (…
Limits to Duty 2.0 − On Product Manufacturers Supervising Doctors
Manufacturers supervising medical doctors? In two words, they don’t. Yet plaintiffs, particularly in cases where preemption forecloses more normal product liability claims, try to get courts to impose such duties. We took a look at that issue back during the early days of the blog, when it was still a Bexis/Herrmann operation, in our September…
D. Mass. Misreads New York Law to Make Patent-Holders Potentially Liable for Pre-Market Testing
No Private Right of Action to Enforce Controlled Substances Act
We typically steer clear of discussing any opioid cases for client reasons. But today we have a case that did not involve our client in any way and that involves a discrete and important issue. Accordingly, we hereby render a bare-bones report.
The case, Floyd v. Feygin, et al., No. 507458/17 (Kings County, N.Y.…
Plaintiffs’ Lead Counsel Off The Hook In Yaz MDL
Multidistrict litigation is not special. By making this pithy observation, we do not mean to denigrate what has become the mother of all procedural mechanisms. What we mean is that multidistrict litigation is, at its core, nothing more than a bunch of venue transfers, bringing multiple cases involving common issues before a single district judge…
S.D. Texas Holds that Pharmacy Dispensing Wrong Drug Owes No Duty to Injured Third-Parties
Way back in law school we learned that a plaintiff suing for negligence must satisfy four elements: (1) duty, (2) breach, (3) causation, and (4) injury. Every one of these elements can be a battleground. Even what seems like the simplest inquiry – whether the plaintiff was injured – can be controversial. We have …
