This is a follow-up post on the case of Knapp v. Zoetis, Inc. – an animal drug case. While not our typically fare, it is still a prescription drug case involving adverse event reporting to the FDA and the learned intermediary doctrine. So, while this patient had four legs instead of two, the legal framework
Safer Alternative
S.D. Ohio 702 Ruling Curtails Pelvic Mesh Plaintiff Expert Opinions

If the pelvic mesh litigation ever ends, the tongue of history will tell a tale of specious plaintiff theories that hoodwinked judges and juries into condemning good products. Plaintiffs extracted millions of dollars and erased product lines by cobbling together irrelevant workplace material handling sheets, counterfactual stories in which the FDA does not exist, and…
MDLs Are Not Vegas – What Happens There Does Not Stay There

Lots of cases get parked in MDLs. There is no denying it. It’s built into the system. Individual cases get brought together in a single court for the purpose of consolidated pretrial proceedings. For the most part, except for cases selected as bellwethers, that means MDLs are focused on general discovery, general experts, and general…
Plaintiff’s Expert Excluded for Too Great an Analytical Gap (Again)

The Northern District of California did not mince words in its opinion in Rodman v. Otsuka America Pharmaceutical, Inc., 2020 WL 2525032 (N.D. Cal. May 18, 2020) and so neither will we. Plaintiff had three theories of failure to warn and a design defect claim and they all failed in grand fashion due in…
New Jersey Product Liability Act Knocks out Design Defect, Manufacturing, Warning, Warranty, and Fraud Claims Against IVC Filter

A couple of weeks ago we compared New Jersey litigation with New Jersey food and decided we liked the food better. No aspersions were intended. After all, we grew up in New Jersey and still worship at the altars of Seton Hall Prep, Bruce Springsteen, and the New York football Giants. Anyway, we might need…
E.D. Michigan Dismisses Hernia Mesh Case for Lack of Safer Alternative

A product is not defective simply because someone was harmed by it. That seems a simple enough point. Courts often acknowledge it, though sometimes in a perfunctory, mumbling fashion. What gives teeth to the mumbling is when state law requires the plaintiff to show a safer alternative product. If really pressed, many plaintiffs cannot articulate…
Plaintiff’s Motion for New Trial Denied in Bair Hugger MDL

Back in May, 3M won the first MDL bellwether trial in In re: Bair Hugger Forced Air Warning Devices Prods. Liab. Litig. (D. Minn.). The case was Gareis v. 3M Company and at the time of trial, the only claim remaining in the case was for strict liability design defect under South Carolina law. 2018…
Partial Summary Judgment Granted in Bard IVC MDL Bellwether

Today’s case has a little bit of everything – choice of law, statutory compliance, alternative design, warnings causation. So, the decision is a bit of “grab bag” in addition to being a “mixed bag.”
The case is Hyde v. C.R. Bard, Inc., 2018 WL 3586404 (D. Ariz. Jul. 26, 2018). To begin with, plaintiff…
Strike Two For Plaintiff in Pennsylvania

This post is from the non-Reed Smith side of the blog.
Today is a follow-up post on Bell v. Boehringer Ingelheim Pharms, No. 17-1153, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 90337 (W.D. PA. May 31, 2018). When we last blogged about this case back in February, the court had tossed out everything except negligence and fraud/misrepresentation…
A Quick Visit to Louisiana

This post is from the non-Reed Smith side of the blog.
It may be post Mardi Gras season, but we don’t think there is ever a bad time to embrace the motto – “Laissez les bons temps rouler.” Quite literally – “Let the good times roll.” However, don’t try this with your high school French…