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This blogger spent the weekend in Morgantown, and West Virginia did everything right except the football score. The leaves were doing their early turn, that first crisp snap was in the air, and the drive in on 68 delivered exactly the scenery you hope for — ridge after ridge of Appalachian foothills rolling out in…

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Over the life of the Blog, there have been many posts taking issue with the pro-plaintiff leanings of California courts, which have resulted in many questionable decisions on issues ranging from expanding personal jurisdiction to shrinking preemption to re-writing the duties of medical product manufacturers under California law.  We have also thrown more than a…

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Every law student learns the same tidy hierarchy on day one of Torts. Negligence is harder to prove than strict liability, because strict liability does not require showing the defendant did anything wrong, only that the product itself was defective. And recklessness is harder still than negligence, reserved for conduct that goes well beyond a…

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Long ago, it seemed that large-scale drug or device litigation was usually spurred on by a recall, market withdrawal, or major labeling change describing a new risk or limiting the scope of product use.  The plaintiff lawyers these days seem to be more willing to put their energy into attacking currently marketed products without triggering…

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Late last year, when we were putting together our massive post that collected and categorized every case that had ever judicially noticed an FDA document, we ran across the intriguing proposition that in deciding Rule 12 pleading-based motions, “allegations in a complaint are not credited where contradicted by judicially noticeable documents.”  We cited several appellate…

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This post comes from the non-RS and non-Dechert side of the Blog.

The great post-modern existentialist philosopher John Madden once said, “If you have two quarterbacks, you actually have no quarterback.”  This was not the result of a fanciful math equation where you (impermissibly) divide by zero.  In American football, except on rare trick plays…