In In re: Onglyza and Kombiglyze XR Products Liability Litigation, MDL 2809, 2022 WL 43244 (E.D. Ken. Jan. 5, 2022), the MDL judge bifurcated discovery into two phases with general causation proceeding first. At the close of expert discovery, plaintiffs move to exclude three defense experts and defendants moved to dismiss one plaintiff expert.
Multidistrict litigations are big piles of wrong. Wrong incentives invite the wrong cases, the wrong rulings, and the wrong results. Plaintiff lawyers park weak cases in MDLs, counting on ultimately collecting money for cases into which they invested virtually no work. Courts encourage that dysfunctional conduct by doing everything possible to force settlements, even if
We begin with the news that the Drug and Device Law Rock Climber has a new puppy. He is six months old and already over 60 pounds – a rescued Australian Shepherd mix. He is also white with blue eyes, a color pattern linked to deafness in dogs and cats. And he is totally deaf,
Recently, when we have spoken of vaccine litigation, it has mostly been about challenges to public health policies requiring vaccination against COVID-19 for healthcare workers, students at public universities, etc. We have been pleased to report that these challenges have been failing without lingering too long at the trial court level, like here, here
We are headed to New York on Monday for the A.C.I. Drug and Medical Device Conference. We love this conference – we always see so many old friends and former colleagues – and we are delighted that it is back “in person” this year. We are speaking on a panel about the proposed amendments to
Get a group of experienced lawyers together and it won’t be long before there is a one-upsmanship game of Crazy-Things-Judges-Have-Done. A learned and revered colleague tells the story of how he went to argue before a law and motion judge many years ago and low comedy ensued. Being a diligent sort of fellow, said learned
After eschewing our blogging duties during a very long trial—followed by short deliberations and a verdict for the good guys—we are back at it. Normally, a significant criterion in how we select a case for a post is the length of the decision—the shorter, the better for our normally busy work lives. After trial, there
“There is naked Nature, inhumanly sincere, wasting no thought on man, nibbling at the cliffy shore where gulls wheel amid the spray.”
We are presently on vacation, in the place that inspired Thoreau’s words above. The meeting of land and water, deceptive solidity sitting hard by the greatest force of caprice on the planet, has
We recently decried the Eighth Circuit’s continuing disregard of the expert gatekeeping function imposed by F.R. Evid. 702 in In re Bair Hugger Forced Air Warming Devices Products Liability Litigation, ___ F.4th ___, 2021 WL 3612753 (8th Cir. Aug. 16, 2021). Well, only four days later, the Fourth Circuit delivered a counterpoint in Sardis
We posted just the other day about widespread judicial reluctance to follow the expert admissibility standards imposed by Federal Rule of Evidence 702. We called out the Eighth Circuit as a prime example of that problem, and we discussed the committee-approved amendments to Rule 702 that are intended to reinforce the need for expert opinions