When we say “bananas,” today’s case is actually about bananas, that herb people tend to call a fruit. It is also quite unusual and complicated. Because it also involves some tragic underlying events, our quips are done. A bit of etymology is warranted, though. We used the term “judge-made law” in the title and that
Erie Doctrine
Ruling On Motion To Dismiss In A Pennsylvania (Prescription) Device Case Takes Us Back
Discovery Rule Does Not Save Plaintiff From Her Lack Of Diligence

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…
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…