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
We’ve written a lot of benzene posts on this blog over the years, and most of them share a common thread. Plaintiffs find a chemical decomposition byproduct nobody put on a label, dress it up as a corporate conspiracy, and ask a court to do what years of FDA rulemaking declined to do. Every so
This case is from the non-Butler Snow side of the blog.
It’s a relatively new term (at least for us Gen Xers) – but we have all been ghosted. A second date that never gets confirmed. A contractor who quotes the job and then vanishes. A group text that just stops. It stings, but usually
About four years ago we posted about a decision in which the Wisconsin Court of Appeals reversed a trial court’s injunction requiring the administration of a certain medication to treat a patient suffering from COVID-19. In that decision, the party seeking the injunction relied on an unsworn declaration from a physician who stated that he was “generally considered the foremost authority” on the proposed treatment. Gahl v. Aurora Health Care, Inc., 403 Wis. 2d 539, 554-55 (Wis. Ct. App. 2022). That decision rejected the assertions in the declaration and noted that the declaration was “conspicuously devoid of any discussion of the patient in [the] case.” Id. Today’s decision, Kory v. Waters, 2026 WL 2507087 (2d. Cir. Aug. 26, 2026), comes full circle—the physician who offered the declaration in Gahl supporting what might be considered unorthodox treatment was named as a defendant in a medical malpractice claim related to his treatment of a patient with COVID-19. The dismissal of the malpractice claims underscores the broad scope of immunity under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (the PREP Act), 42 U.S.C. § 247d-6d. Even if the treatment might be considered “counter-culture,” if the Act’s requirements are satisfied, it is subject to immunity from suit.
Continue Reading PREP Act Comes Full Circle for “Counter-Culture” Expert in COVID-19 Treatment
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
We were saddened this week to hear about the passing of Dolly Parton. A prolific and wonderful songwriter, she was also a relentless force for good. A shining example of her goal of improving the world is her Imagination Library, which she started to make sure as many kids as possible had a chance to read. Since its founding in 1995, the library has donated over three hundred million books to children across the world. As Dolly put it:
When I was growing up in the hills of East Tennessee, I knew my dreams would come true. I know there are children in your community with their own dreams. They dream of becoming a doctor or an inventor or a minister. Who knows, maybe there is a little girl whose dream is to be a writer and a singer.
The seeds of these dreams are often found in books and the seeds you plant in your community can grow across the world.
Dolly planted a remarkable number of those seeds, and in many ways she represented the best of us. Things seem a little darker knowing that such a positive driver of goodness is gone. We will miss her voice, her smile, and her charity, but we trust that her example of doing good will live on. It’s hard to relate that to our blogging, but ultimately we all have to turn back to the nine to five (OK, OK, we couldn’t help it).
Today’s case is another “LifeVest” wearable defibrillator case (we’ve blogged about prior cases involving this device here and here). Pellegrin v. Zoll Medical Corp., 2026 WL 2409216 (E.D. La. Aug. 1, 2026). Plaintiff was prescribed a LifeVest for her cardiac care after suffering heart failure. She claimed that she experienced two unnecessary discharges from the device when she was not undergoing a cardiac event. She alleged chronic neck pain following the alleged shocks from the device—although the court noted she had a history of cervical spine problems. The defendant moved to dismiss based on preemption.
Continue Reading More LifeVest PMA Preemption
Shortly after the Supreme Court decided Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 603 U.S. 369 (2024), we predicted that that the other side would attempt to use that decision “for nefarious purposes.” We chronicled their first, “meat-axe” attempt here, where MDL plaintiffs argued that Loper Bright somehow abolished implied preemption in tort cases altogether.
The Supreme Court decided Buckman in the context of a fairly large product liability litigation about implanted medical devices. In the years that followed, the plaintiffs in drug and device product liability litigation tried a number of arguments to cabin the impact of Buckman. For instance, they argued that it 1) did not apply
Every sport has that one venue where the home team gets every close call. Fenway in the late 2010s. Lambeau Field in a January snowstorm. Or, if you are a Baltimore Orioles fan — Yankee Stadium in Game 1 of the 1996 American League Championship Series, where a twelve-year-old kid with a glove reached over
Today’s case, Schmidt v. Dexcom, Inc., 2026 WL 2244106 (E.D. Mich. Aug 2, 2026), involves a glucose monitoring device (the “G6”) and a pretty bad day for the plaintiff—both in terms of how he somehow managed to get a needle stuck in his arm when the device doesn’t go there and the shellacking he