We tend not to post much on appellate statute of limitations decisions. There are a few reasons for that. First, they are often very fact-specific, rarely delivering holdings with clear applications to other cases. Second, because they can be fact-specific and plaintiffs are known to plead around defenses, good decisions on motions to dismiss are
Erie Doctrine
Some Positive News from the In re BHR MDL

If you are even a casual reader of this blog, you have probably come upon a post disparaging the rulings coming out of the In re BHR Hip Implant Products Liability Litigation. That court’s PMA preemption opinion made our worst decision list for 2018. It rendered an abysmal decision finding that failure-to-report claims…
We Report on FDA-Based Failure-To-Report Claims – A Fifty-State Survey (Part 3)

Now that all three parts of our 50-state survey examining the state of state law concerning allegations that a defendant can state a common-law cause of action where the allegedly liability creating conduct is failure to make a statutorily mandated report to a governmental agency has been published, we have consolidated all fifty states under…
We Report on FDA-Based Failure-To-Report Claims – A Fifty-State Survey (Part 2)

Now that all three parts of our 50-state survey examining the state of state law concerning allegations that a defendant can state a common-law cause of action where the allegedly liability creating conduct is failure to make a statutorily mandated report to a governmental agency has been published, we have consolidated all fifty states under…
We Report on FDA-Based Failure-To-Report Claims – A Fifty-State Survey

Not too long ago we discussed the decision in In re Allergan Biocell Textured Breast Implant Products Liability Litigation, 537 F. Supp.3d 679 (D.N.J. 2021) (“TBI”). TBI addressed quite a few topics, one of which was the first nationwide (or close to it) analysis of whether a given jurisdiction permitted, under state…
Eighth Circuit Affirms Refusal To Create A Contraceptive Exception To Nebraska’s Learned Intermediary Doctrine

Given the events of the last eleven months or so, we give ourselves and other legal commentators a preemptive pass for the following situation: you read a case, you think about how you would describe it, and you see that you have described similar cases in a similar way more than once. This could be…
Zantac Chronicles – No Innovative, or Innovator, Liability

Several significant decisions have recently emerged from the In re Zantac MDL, No. 2924. We gave you a “bare bones” rundown of the first four of them right away. But now we’d like to discuss them in more detail.
We start with In re Zantac (Ranitidine) Products Liability Litigation, ___ F. Supp.3d…
MDL Court Predicts Expansion of Illinois Law

We are not going to beat around the bush today. When we see a “prediction” of an “expansion” of state law by a federal court, we have only one question. What about Erie R.R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 78 (1938)? That should have been a front and center question for the court…
Zantac Rulings – Bare Bones

This post is from the non-Dechert side of the Blog.
There were four opinions issued in the Zantac MDL on New Years Eve. We would like to tell you all about them, but we have to seek internal client approvals, and that will take time given the number of defendants. They are important, and overwhelmingly…
To Expand Or Not To Expand, That Is A Question That Should Be Posed

Along with Shakespeare’s plays and painfully plodding Victorian novels, there is a good chance that your western high school (or perhaps college) education included at least a smattering of philosophy. The line between political science and philosophy can be hard to draw—Kant, Hobbes, and Rousseau might be featured in classes under either heading, for instance—but…