Critics have been known to accuse us of being too hard on product liability plaintiffs and too forgiving of defendants who develop medical products. We all have our biases, especially after many collective decades of representing the latter group, but we do think the table is often tilted in favor of the former group. One
We praised Brooks v. Mentor Worldwide, LLC, 2019 WL 4628264 (D. Kan. Sept. 23, 2019), when it was first decided, as “checking all the boxes.” Last week the Tenth Circuit affirmed, and believe us, it rechecked all those boxes.
In Brooks v. Mentor Worldwide LLC, ___ F.3d ___, 2021 WL 245246
Albert Einstein supposedly said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” He may not have, but the point is well taken. We often think the same thing – particularly about plaintiffs that sue manufacturers of FDA premarket-approved (“PMA”) medical devices with vague, boilerplate complaints. Haven’t they heard about
Late last year we awarded our #10 spot on our Worst of 2020 post to In re Valsartan, Losartan, & Irbesartan Products Liability Litigation, 2020 WL 7418006 (D.N.J. Dec. 18, 2020) (“VLI”). At that point the decision was brand new, and we promised a more in-depth analysis. Here it is.
VLI fits
Could a tax case ever make for interesting reading? To our surprise, the answer is Yes. In our end-of-year excavation of older cases we missed when they first came out, we unearthed Rowitz v. Tax Commisioner of Ohio, 2019 WL 7489061 (Ohio Ct. App. Dec. 31, 2019). The plaintiffs in that case applied for
Perhaps the biggest conflict among the circuits in PMA preemption cases involves the extent to which plaintiffs can get away with pleading essentially nothing to support supposed “parallel” violation claims, on the one hand, or on the other must plead a particularized violation of an FDA regulation (usually a “Current Good Manufacturing Practice” or “CGMP”)
The decision in In re Bard IVC Filters Products Liability Litigation, 969 F.3d 1067 (9th Cir. 2020) (“Booker”), is yet another reminder that multidistrict litigation as it is currently conducted is a fundamentally flawed process, dedicated more to forcing settlements than to any of the goals envisioned by Congress when it passed
It’s not unusual for us to disagree with a decision from a state’s highest court. Indeed, we did so vehemently not long ago with a decision by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. But even when we disagree, we rarely encounter decisions that make us cringe as much as Russell v. Johnson & Johnson, ___ S.W.3d
A great woman once said “When they go low, we go high.” Apropos of nothing in particular these days, we have been thinking about the issue of tone recently. For instance, what is the exact line between a negative political advertisement and a positive one? Are there circumstances where a candidate might suspend negative ads
Most of the controversy in the recent decision, Hill v. Bayer Corp., 2020 WL 5367334 (E.D. Mich. Sept. 8, 2020), revolved around whether the plaintiff could assert a cause of action for failure to report adverse product events to the FDA. Like the great majority of decisions (particularly since Conklin v. Medtronic, Inc.,