Uncertainty plagues American litigation and accounts for the frequent analogy to a lottery. The same case tried before two different juries will produce two very different results. Within the same jurisdiction, a plaintiff might ring the bell this week, but get zeroed out the next. Factor in different jurisdictions, and the possibilities will wander all
This post comes only from the Cozen O’Connor side of the blog.
If you’re a defendant in a drug or device lawsuit in Arizona court, you have a good chance of avoiding punitive damages. That’s because Arizona has a statute, a good one. It exempts manufacturers, including drug and device manufacturers, from liability for
It’s a case that pre- and post-dates the IVC Filters MDL– Ocasio v. C.R. Bard, Inc., 2020 WL 3288026 (M.D. Fla. Jun. 18, 2020). In fact, this case got through summary judgment and Daubert rulings in Florida before being transferred to the MDL in Arizona in 2015. Upon its return to Florida, only two
. . . .And a few other claims too. But the punitive damages decision jumped out at us as something we don’t see that often. In fact, the court in Nunez v. Coloplast Corp., — F.Supp.3d –, 2020 WL 2561364 (S.D. Fla. May 20, 2020) only had conflicting precedent to go on. But to
Missouri is central to America – geographically, culturally, and politically. Some of our greatest literature came from Missouri authors (Twain, Eliot, Angelou). Media figures as unifying as Walter Cronkite and as divisive as Rush Limbaugh at one time called Missouri home. American music wouldn’t be the same without tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins (listen to the
Truly unique cases are, well, unique. Most cases involve variations or combinations of cases we have seen before. Sometimes you get different results between two decisions on basically the same case with a single fact different. In February, we posted on an Eastern District of Pennsylvania decision on a motion to dismiss in a case
We don’t write a lot about our neighboring state of Arizona, but a recent hip replacement case in the District of Arizona caught our eye. We lived in Arizona for a year back in the mid-1990s, and it is a genuinely interesting and underestimated place. The 2010 census results have Phoenix as the sixth largest
Various plaintiff-side consortia have taken it into their heads to sue every manufacturer of so-called “novel oral anticoagulants” because these products, gasp, can cause serious, and sometime fatal, bleeding incidents. Fortunately, on the whole the plaintiffs haven’t done so well with these cases – losing almost all the trials – because jurors can be taught
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. A jack of all trades is a master of none. These cutesy little phrases throw some derision toward one who possesses some knowledge in a bunch of areas. Representing drug and device companies in litigation can make a lawyer reject the negative interpretation of these phrases. We have
We have always thought that regulatory approval or clearance of a drug or medical device should weigh heavily against punitive damages, or even preclude punitive damages altogether. An Arizona statute says exactly that, and now a trial court in Phoenix has applied that statute to dismiss punitive damages in a case involving a medical device