We’ve only discussed Shady Grove Orthopedic Associates, P.A. v. Allstate Insurance Co., 559 U.S. 393 (2010), a couple of times. Shady Grove, displaced – in federal court – a variety of state-law limitations on class actions because those restrictions were at odds with Fed. R. Civ. P. 23, and in federal
We’ve bashed the horrible decision in Bausch v. Stryker Corp., 630 F.3d 546 (7th Cir. 2010), more times than we care to count. This time we’re taking a look precedent contrary to Bausch’s statement that “[t]here are no special pleading requirements for product liability claims.” Id. at 558. While that is true as a platitude, the fact of the matter is that TwIqbal does not recognize legal conclusions such as “X violated the FDCA” unless they are supported by facts that plausibly establish the purported violation. Plaintiffs “cannot simply incant the magic words [defendant] violated FDA regulations in order to avoid preemption.” Caplinger v. Medtronic, Inc., 921 F. Supp.2d 1206, 1224 (W.D. Okla. 2013), aff’d, 784 F.3d 1335 (10th Cir. 2015)
Thus, in the specific context of allegations of “parallel” claims that seek to evade preemption, most courts have recognized that “[p]arallel claims must be specifically stated in the initial pleadings.” Wolicki-Gables v. Arrow International, Inc., 634 F.3d 1296, 1301 (11th Cir. 2011).Continue Reading Preemption, Plausibility, and Parallel Claims
This week we could not resist writing about a good result from an always interesting jurisdiction (Louisiana) involving one of our all-time favorite defense lawyers (Hi, Lori Cohen).
In McGuire v. B. Braun Med. Inc., 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 184172, 2025 WL 2689205 (E.D. Louisiana Sept. 19, 2025), the district court granted the defendants’ motion to
The term “kitchen sink complaint” is not meant as a compliment. And the court did not use it as one in describing the proposed amended complaint in Ehlers v. Abiomed, Inc., — F. Supp. 3d –, 2025 WL 2029662, *9 (E.D. Mo. Jul. 21, 2025). The term refers to the tendency of some attorneys
In Chock v. Stryker Corp., 2025 WL 1797933 (E.D. Cal. June 30, 2025), the plaintiff mounted a TwIqbal attack against the defendant’s affirmative defenses and largely lost. The court’s opinion is short and to the point, and offers lessons. The case is particularly useful, as many of the pleaded items at issue are common. Most importantly
When you write a few hundred or more posts for a legal blog devoted to the somewhat niche subject of drug and device product liability law, you look for themes or hooks to keep both the writer and presumptive readers engaged. The themes may be fairly obvious based on the date of the post, the
This is not the first time we have posted about Gallego v. Tandem Diabetes Care, Inc. About six weeks ago we told you all about the excellent preemption decision that dismissed the entire case with prejudice except for a piece of the negligent design claim. On that, plaintiff was given thirty days to file
For the decades that we have been handling drug and medical device product liability cases, it has been a given that we wanted to make it clear that our clients did not provide medical care or healthcare directly to patients. For one thing, unauthorized practice of medicine would be bad. Also, when dealing with prescription
Today we address two more cooked-up—literally—Valisure cases, Bodunde v. Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc., No. 1:24-CV-00985-JLT-SAB, 2025 WL 1411306 (E.D. Cal. May 15, 2025), and Navarro v. Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc., No. 1:24-CV-00290-JLT-SAB, 2025 WL 1411406 (E.D. Cal. May 15, 2025).
These two cases involve legally identical magistrate recommendations that Defendant’s motions to dismiss
We’ve written before about the long-running Muldoon v. DePuy Orthopedics lawsuit. For one thing, it’s been around forever – its facts are almost as old as the Blog. As we stated here:
Muldoon . . . is a suit over hip-replacement surgery conducted in 2007. Suit was not filed, however, until 2015 – undoubtedly Muldoon is another example of the flotsam and jetsam dredged up by MDL lawyer solicitation. So Muldoon was stale from the beginning. But it got worse. For some eight years, Muldoon sat in the horribly mismanaged Pinnacle Hip MDL in Texas. It appears that nothing at all happened during those years . . . [until] 2023, when the case was ultimately remanded, without comment. So, due to the combined lassitude of the plaintiffs and MDL management, the suit is nearly 14½ years post-surgery, and only now being addressed on the pleadings.
(citations and quotation marks omitted).
Finally, in Muldoon v. DePuy Orthopaedics, Inc., 2025 U.S. Dist. Lexis 34013 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 25, 2025), it was dismissed with prejudice. And in the end, the plaintiff didn’t even put up a fight. Faced with the defendant’s latest dismissal motion, “[p]laintiff has declined to file any opposition.” Id. at *2. What was at stake this time were the claims that had survived the defendant’s first dismissal motion against the plaintiff’s absurdly excessive 18-count post-MDL amended complaint. We had some words to say about that complaint as well: “It is a dog’s breakfast. Or it is what our dogs deliver to our yard right after consuming their breakfast.”Continue Reading Muldoon Dismissed – The End of an Error?