That’s the main lesson of the emerging fiasco that is the ALI’s benignly named “Concluding Provisions” project for the Restatement Third of Torts. While this title suggests that the Institute is merely engaged in routine “mop up” work, nothing could be further from the truth. Any number of significant tort-related topics were not addressed by
Medical Monitoring
Zantac Chronicles V – Medical Monitoring and the Wheels Coming Off

Still more Zantac MDL dismissal orders.
Today’s installment grants dismissal of the plaintiffs’ medical monitoring claims, and also sheds some light on the questionable factual basis of everything being asserted in this MDL. As we’ve pointed out in our prior posts (such as this one), plaintiffs allege that the active ingredient in this drug…
A Better Valsartan Decision

This post is from the non-Reed Smith side of the blog.
We posted last week about In re Valsartan, Losartan, & Irbesartan Products Liability Litigation, 2020 WL 7418006 (D.N.J. Dec. 18, 2020), a decision that came in just time to take a sport on our Worst of 2020 post. Just as we were…
Nationwide Medical Monitoring Class Rejected

Procedural considerations often decide cases. Sometimes, weighty legal issues are reached through quirky procedural routes. When it comes to whether state tort law provides medical monitoring as a remedy for people who do not have a present compensable injury, that is a legal (and policy) issue. We have written many times that we think foundational…
Illinois Supreme Court: Need for Medical Monitoring Is Not an “Injury” that Supports a Negligence Claim
Always Liability Increases? – Don’t Mess With Texas!

Not too long ago we criticized a proposed “restatement” from the American Law Institute that sought to absolve plaintiffs who acted intentionally from having their conduct (such as stealing drugs, deliberately taking someone else’s prescription), count as comparative fault in the lawsuits such plaintiffs frequently file against our clients. That particular proposal has been withdrawn…
The Only Common Issue Is Preemption

We had to shake our heads at the recent 360 story entitled, “Allergan Breast Implant Risk MDL Heading to New Jersey” – the link is here for those of you with a subscription.
The idea of a “risk” MDL seems bizarre. The story involves a particular type of cancer, and states that “four proposed class…
M.D. PA Declines to Dismiss Monitoring/Declaratory Judgment Action vs. Blood Temperature Regulation Device

We thought we were on a winning streak on medical monitoring. In August, we blogged about plaintiff lawyers stumbling in their efforts to walk the not-quite-yet-injury line. https://www.druganddevicelawblog.com/2017/08/monitoring-the-death-of-medical-monitoring.html In September, we blogged about a denial of a medical monitoring class action because the issues were more specific than common. https://www.druganddevicelawblog.com/2017/09/medical-monitoring-class-certification-fails.html. But with the falling…
Medical Monitoring Class Certification Fails

Normally, when we think of decisions relating to medical monitoring, the issue is whether a state will recognize medical monitoring for uninjured people as a separate claim or relief that can be sought under an existing theory of recovery. Just last month, we noted that it looked like the issue had been largely resolved…
Monitoring the Death of Medical Monitoring

If not yet dead, the medical monitoring claim itself is hooked up to monitors and the prognosis is not good. It’s dying from a self-inflicted injury, which paradoxically is its lack of injury. Class action plaintiffs’ lawyers, the lawyers who have largely filed these claims, despise physical injuries. Physical injuries come with differences, and differences…