Since Conte in 2008, we have not made a secret of our view that innovator liability is a bad idea, contrary to traditional tort law principles and to sound public policy. We, especially Bexis, may even be accused of being somewhat obsessed with chronicling the decisions, big and small, on this issue over close to
A case from Alabama this week got us to thinking about two topics on which we write a lot — innovator liability and personal jurisdiction. We thought the most interesting part of Bexis’ recent post on innovator liability was its suggestion that innovators sued over the use of generic drugs should consider objecting to jurisdiction.
While the entire blogging team (RS, at least) was traveling home by planes, trains and automobiles from the DRI’s annual Drug and Medical Device conference, the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals – yes, the same court that rejected the learned intermediary rule little more than a decade ago – issued its blockbuster opinion today
Once again we find ourselves in the position of creating new defenses to a novel, plaintiff-side cause of action. This time, we’ve been doing a lot of thinking about innovator liability – the theory that would hold branded manufacturers liable for injuries allegedly caused by the ingestion of (preemption-immune) generic drugs on some kind of
This guest post, by long-time friend of the blog, Terry Henry of Blank Rome, is a little different than most. It was invited. We read an article Terry wrote, which, at the end (it was mostly about other stuff), advised “[a] brand manufacturer defending itself [against innovator liability] should consider, at the appropriate time,
Stephen Hawking may have been the smartest guy in the world, even though he believed that “People who boast about their I.Q. are losers.” Hawking is best known for his work on black holes. As used in physics, a black hole describes a point-sized mass (called a “singularity”) so dense that its escape velocity exceeds
We recently read a news story about a man who was imprisoned for 39 years for a crime he did not commit. The crime was grisly and resulted in the violent deaths of a 24-year-old woman and a small child, leaving a community outraged and law enforcement officials determined to hold someone responsible. So, burdens
Sometimes it happens. For eleven years, we have published our annual “worst of” the year post on the Thursday before Christmas and our annual “best of” the year post on the Thursday before New Year’s.
Guess what? In a development that we weren’t entirely surprised to see happen, the California Supreme Court recognized not only
We posted our 2017 “Worst 10 decisions” list a day too soon, because the California Supreme Court issued its anticipated decision in TH v. Novartis, No. S233898, slip op. (Cal. Dec. 22, 2017) today, and if it is not the worst drug and device decision of 2017, it is awfully close. With an emphasis
A lot of us attended the annual ACI Drug & Medical Device Litigation Conference in New York City last week. One of the messages sent loud and clear from the initial client round table panel is that our clients don’t like surprises, and it is helpful to them to know information about potential litigation possibilities