We have a confession: we leave the TV on for the Drug and Device Law Little Rescue Dogs when we leave the house. A couple of days ago, they were watching Love It or List It when we left for the grocery store. When we returned, the screen was black. We are told that something
Product liability plaintiffs sometimes sue every entity in the distribution chain. But in many jurisdictions under many circumstances, there is an out for nonmanufacturing defendants. That was the case in Martinez v. Medical Depot et al., 434 F. Supp. 3d 537 (S.D. Texas 2020). The plaintiff was injured when an armrest on his unmotorized
The hip implant litigation, Rouviere v. DePuy, has already given us one of the classic opinions on the COVID-19 “new normal” in litigation practices. See Rouviere v. DePuy Orthopaedics, Inc., ___ F. Supp.3d ___, 2020 WL 3967665 (S.D.N.Y. July 11, 2020) (blogged about here). That decision was prompted largely by the plaintiff’s
That’s how Maryland’s highest court chose to characterize its gradual move from Frye to Daubert – a drifting process. Like the way the ocean drifts ashore as the tide is rising. Creeping a little higher, each wave covering and absorbing a little more of the beach. As it slowly inches toward your chair where you’re
It is an old legal adage that hard cases make bad law. One could also say that big cases make bad law, especially if by “big” we include Multi-District Litigation (MDL) cases. When a federal judge is suddenly in charge of thousands of cases, that judge will too often start thinking more like a manager
April Zambelli-Weiner is an epidemiologist (meaning she’s not an M.D.), on the plaintiffs’ side, who claims expertise in a wide variety of areas. In addition to the Zofran (birth defect) litigation that prompted this (and a prior) post, her name pops up in litigation over leukemia, Walsh v. BASF Corp., ___ A.3d
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently decided Walsh v. BASF Corp., ___ A.3d ___, 2020 WL 4135151 (Pa. July 21, 2020), reaffirming product identification as an essential element of product liability.
Below, the Superior Court had turned a trial court’s routine Fryebert-like exclusion ruling in a chemical exposure case into scary new precedent in
One day last week, we were sitting at our computer watching a torrential rainstorm through the windows of our home office. It occurred to us, based on some recent seepage, that we should check our basement. We opened the door to the most-unwelcome sound of rushing water. Momentarily confused, we identified the source: a new
Plaintiffs’ experts do a lot of stupid things. We’ve dedicated whole posts to them – here and here, for example. Now we have another trick to add to their growing list of shenanigans – plaintiffs’ experts turn FCA relators. That’s right, two of plaintiffs’ experts from the DePuy Orthopedics hip implant litigation are trying
One recent night, three-plus months into our ongoing solitary confinement, we found ourselves laughing very hard at a classic Road Runner cartoon. We especially loved the moment when Wile E. Coyote stepped off a cliff then froze in mid-air as knowledge of his fate dawned on him. That image popped into our mind as we