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For several years, we have blogged about the controversy over whether the American Law Institute (“ALI”) should put its Restatement Third of Torts imprimatur on no-injury medical monitoring.  Here’s the latest update, as that effort nears culmination.  As reported by the ALI, on Monday May 22, at the Institute’s 100th Anniversary annual meeting:

Continue Reading Always Liability Increases (ALI)?  Not Yet with Medical Monitoring.

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One of the most fundamental limitations on tort liability – all tort liability – is that a plaintiff must suffer an injury before s/he can bring a lawsuit.  As Judge (later Justice) Benjamin Cardozo, held “[p]roof of negligence in the air, so to speak, will not do.”  Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co., 162 N.E. 99, 99 (1928) (citation omitted).  Or, as Professors William Prosser and Page Keeton, put it in their treatise:

Continue Reading Live Free, or at Least Have a Present Injury

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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