We recently commented on Sumpter v. Allergan, Inc., 2018 WL 4335519 (E.D. Mo. Sept. 11, 2018), for several reasons – all bad – but one stands out, the ruling that used what’s essentially res ipsa loquitur to wave plaintiff through PMA preemption with a manufacturing defect. According to Sumpter:
Plaintiffs allege that, due
We’ll get to today’s case in a moment, but first, a few words about SCOTUS and expiration dates.
This post comes only from the Cozen O’Connor side of the blog.
The MDL court in the Testosterone Replacement Therapy (“TRT”) litigation recently entered summary judgment in favor of a non-US manufacturer that did not distribute in the US, along with its US subsidiary. The judgment ended efforts to hold those two defendants, Besins
This post is from the non-Reed Smith side of the blog.
It may be post Mardi Gras season, but we don’t think there is ever a bad time to embrace the motto – “Laissez les bons temps rouler.” Quite literally – “Let the good times roll.” However, don’t try this with your high school French
Last year’s list of the Ten Worst DDL cases was remarkable because all ten decisions came from appellate courts. Yikes. And it is not as if the bad appellate decisions were spread around. Two came from our home circuit, the Third. Two came from the reliably problematic Ninth Circuit. But the ‘winner’ was the Eleventh
Happy birthday, Christopher Plummer. The great Canadian actor turns 88 today, and seems as vibrant as ever. What a marvelous career Plummer has had. He is a preeminent Shakespearean actor. We saw him play Iago to James Earl Jones’s Othello on Broadway 35 years ago. Of course, most people remember Plummer as Captain Von Trapp
This post is from the non-Reed Smith side of the blog.
Search for Medtronic on this blog and you’re going to find preemption cases. Lots of preemption cases. Mostly preemption victories for the defense. An overwhelming body of preemption law has been made by Medtronic. They’ve certainly led the charge. So, if we say today’s
It’s a fairly well known double standard. If you ask your child why he or she did that rotten, terrible, awful thing and he or she responds “just because” – that’s never good enough. When a parent is faced with the question “why,” however, “because I said so” is a fairly standard, albeit a bit
We’ve all had cases where plaintiffs try to use their prescribers and treaters as their experts on everything from failure to warn and causation to design defect and company conduct. Even on the medical aspects of the case, a treater needs to offer more than just an unsupported general conclusion in order to withstand scrutiny
Back in October we posted about the Eastern District of Pennsylvania decision McLaughlin v. Bayer Corp, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 37516 (EDPA Mar. 22, 2016) saying that while we liked the ultimate result – tossing out most of plaintiffs’ claims – some pieces of the decision weren’t as strong as we would have liked. Well, McLaughlin’s back and it’s still not a slam dunk, but plaintiffs’ don’t have too much left of their cases either.
As a reminder, this is actually a decision in 5 cases each alleging injury from plaintiffs’ use of a Class III, PMA contraceptive device, Essure. McLaughlin v. Bayer Corp., 2017 WL 697047, at *1 (E.D.Pa. Feb. 21, 2017). Several of plaintiffs’ original causes of action were dismissed with prejudice, but they were given an opportunity to amend to try to salvage their claims for negligent training, negligent risk management, breach of express warranty, fraudulent misrepresentation, and negligent manufacture. Negligent misrepresentation and failure to warn premised on failure to report survived the first motion to dismiss.
The decision methodically goes through each cause of action.
Negligent Training: In its first decision, the court opined it was possible to state a parallel claim for negligent training, but since plaintiffs failed to specify how defendant’s training deviated from federal training requirements or how those deviations caused plaintiffs injuries, the claim had to be dismissed as insufficiently pled. Id. at *3. In the amended complaint, plaintiffs alleged 6 such failures by defendant. As to 3, the court couldn’t find any federal directive that required defendant to do what plaintiffs alleged it failed to do. So, as to those 3 allegations, the claim was dismissed as expressly preempted. Id. at *4-5. As to the remaining 3 alleged violations, defendant challenged them on causation grounds but was unsuccessful. The court found the complaint sufficiently alleged that because defendant failed to properly train the doctors, the doctors in turn did not properly place the device causing it to migrate and cause plaintiffs’ injuries. Id. at *5. The complaint, however, lacked any specific allegations about the actual doctors who performed plaintiffs’ surgeries. The court didn’t find that fatal at the pleadings stage – that was for discovery. Id. at *6. But if you look at what the 3 bases for the failure train claim are, they appear to all be things plaintiffs could have asked their doctors about before filing these lawsuits. Did the doctor successfully complete 5 preceptorings? Did the doctor read and understand the training manual? Did the doctor successfully complete the simulator training? If the answers to those 3 questions are yes in each case – this claim is over.