Our PMA Preemption Scorecard now collects 729 opinions, the vast majority of which find preemption (which is why it’s a “scorecard”). Only three of them are from the Land of Enchantment, New Mexico – with two of them being in the same case. The third is Yusnukis v. Nevro Corp., 2026 WL 509227 (D.N.M.
This post comes from the non-RS side of the Blog.
Prescription medications for psychiatric conditions fill an important role in modern healthcare. They tend to have labels with lots of information about the risks of various emotional, psychological, and neuroreceptor-mediated conditions, including worsening of the underlying conditions being treated, interactions with other medications or substances
At the DDL blog we unashamedly confess our biases. Foremost among those biases is that we walk the defense side of the street. Another inescapable bias, at least for this particular scribbler, is that we know and like many of the Philly judges. In the City of Brotherly Love, familiarity breeds respect.
Over the past
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