This time of year, many of us are focused on the NFL playoffs. For someone who watches the Super Bowl for the commercials or the halftime show, which team wins may not matter much. For those devoted to a particular team, however, there is one possible result that will be truly satisfying. The reality is
Multidistrict Litigation
MDL Master Complaint — What’s the Point?
Is the question we are asking ourselves after reading Butler v. 3M Company, 2024 WL 5054884 (S.D. Ohio Dec. 9, 2024). Because if plaintiffs get to amend their complaints post-remand to add whole new claims and allegations, then the MDL process of litigating based on a master complaint doesn’t seem to make a lot…
Guest Post: Is Social Media Really A Public Nuisance?
This is a guest post from John Vaughan https://www.hklaw.com/en/professionals/v/vaughan-john-thomas, a partner at Holland & Knight who has been in-house at both pharma and tech companies, which gives him some extra insights into the decision discussed below. As with all guest posts, the author gets all the credit and blame for the content of the post…
Taxotere MDL Dismisses Cases for Failure to Respond Timely to Suggestions of Death
Just about three months ago, we blogged about Rule 25 dismissals in the Bair Hugger MDL, and today we bring you more of the same from Taxotere. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 25 provides that “[i]f a party dies . . . the court may order substitution of the proper party.” Rule 25 goes…
Plaintiffs Fail to Backdoor Expansive Early Discovery in GLP-1 MDL
We have no personal knowledge of the litigation concerning GLP-1 receptor agonist medications and the Blog has not posted on it yet, but we do know something about litigation over widely used prescription medications. Over the decades, there have been many drugs or classes of drugs that became “blockbusters” because they were widely prescribed to…
Taxotere Lone Pine Continues to Stand
Today we revisit the Lone Pine order for the Taxotere MDL. We previously discussed the entry of the Lone Pine order and the court’s denial of plaintiffs’ motion to reconsider entry of the order. Here, plaintiffs tried once again to take an axe to the Lone Pine, this time by arguing that it is unfair specifically with respect to deceased plaintiffs. The court roundly rejected plaintiffs’ arguments. In re: Taxotere (Docetaxel) Prods. Liab. Litig., 2024 WL 4362982 (E.D. La. Oct. 1, 2024).Continue Reading Taxotere Lone Pine Continues to Stand
Has Albrecht Been Undone?
We do not mean the German Renaissance painter and thinker Albrecht Dürer. His work, while a poor cousin to that of some famous contemporaries to the south, remains as is. We mean the Supreme Court’s decision in Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. v. Albrecht, 587 U.S. 299 (2019), which has been touted for the…
MDL Common Benefit Funds Cannot Pilfer from Non-MDL Cases
In re Hair Relaxer Mkt. Practices & Prods. Liab. Litig., 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 150916 (N.D. Illinois Aug. 22, 2024), is a fairly interesting decision on MDL procedure. We say “fairly” because the case is mostly a matter of voyeurism for defense hacks. The case is about how lead plaintiff counsel get paid. Nobody…
Roundup Preemption Decision Also Helps with FDCA
This post is not from the Bryan Cave side of the Blog.
The Third Circuit’s preemption decision in Schaffner v. Monsanto Corp., ___ F.4th ___, 2024 WL 3820973 (3d Cir. Aug. 15, 2024), is certainly a big deal in that litigation. As observed in the Bloomberg story about the decision, carried in the August…
Bair Hugger MDL Court Dismisses Cases for Failures to File Timely Suggestions of Death
We are in the midst (at least we hope we are that far) of wrapping up an MDL settlement. As is typical, the settlement envisions a minimum participation rate After all, why would a client fling a fat wad of cash at plaintiffs’ counsel, only later to fling not-quite-as-fat-wads at their own counsel to continue…