Today’s case isn’t drug/device, but it’s something our defense-oriented readers should know about. At the tail end of 2021, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court laid this rotten egg: Commonwealth v. Monsanto Co., ___ A.3d ___, 2021 WL 6139209 (Pa. Cmwlth. Dec. 30, 2021) (“CvM”). The Commonwealth Court is a unique Pennsylvania judicial body,
Statute Of Limitations
Discovery Rule Does Not Save Plaintiff From Her Lack Of Diligence

We tend not to post much on appellate statute of limitations decisions. There are a few reasons for that. First, they are often very fact-specific, rarely delivering holdings with clear applications to other cases. Second, because they can be fact-specific and plaintiffs are known to plead around defenses, good decisions on motions to dismiss are…
Fifth Circuit Affirms Two Defense Victories from the Taxotere MDL

We hope, when our time on earth is up, we are remembered as someone who possessed skills and made contributions. We are certain that gardening will not be among them. In that vein, we recently hired professionals to plant a lovely new bed at the end of our driveway. We were admonished that we must…
Plaintiff Cannot Escape Prior Pleadings to Avoid Statute of Limitations

Wanke v. Invasix, Inc., 2021 WL 325923 (M.D. Tenn. Feb. 1, 2021) is an interesting and somewhat long story, so we’re just going to give it to you straight.
In June 2017, plaintiff underwent a medical procedure on her face in which defendant’s medical device was used. Her counsel entered into a tolling agreement…
Deposing Attorney’s Failure to File Appearance Does Not Preclude Use of Deposition to Support Statute of Limitations Defense

A couple of times in recent weeks we have discussed pelvic mesh cases where a central issue was whether the cases were time-barred by a statute of limitations or repose. (See here and here.) There is a reason why this issue crops up persistently. The pelvic mesh litigation started off as a mass tort…
Mixed Bag of Mesh Rulings

Unlike the Big Guy tonight, we here at the Drug and Device Law Blog do not distribute bags of toys. Throughout this annus horribilis, we’ve handed out plenty of veritable mixed bags. Langner v. Boston Sci. Corp., 2020 U.S. Dist. Lexis 222125 (D. Nebraska Oct. 1, 2020), is another such mixed bag. Langner…
New York Recognizes Some Cross-Jurisdictional Class Action Tolling

We don’t like class action tolling. We don’t think that plaintiffs should be rewarded for filing a meritless class action (or any other meritless act) with a potentially broad and lengthy exemption from the relevant statute of limitations. We particularly don’t like cross-jurisdictional class action tolling, which makes a state’s enforcement of its own statute…
Utah Decision On SOL in Med Mal Cases Touches On Recurring Issues

Typically, medical malpractice cases are one-offs. A plaintiff may sue her doctor and/or hospital for failing to diagnose a condition or treating it in a suboptimal way. They tend to be highly fact-dependent even if the general subject, like post-operative infection, comes up fairly often within the world of med mal cases. In individual cases,…
Tolling Agreement’s Clear Language Saves The Day

We don’t often write about statutes of limitations because the cases tend to be fact bound and not all that illuminating on larger points of law and/or practice. However, a case in California struck a chord with us recently because it highlights a point that we think every litigator should understand: Tolling agreements should not…
Consulting an Attorney Triggers Statute of Limitations

A complaint is a plaintiff’s opening argument. It has to contain enough substance to get plaintiff out of the gate. Plaintiff doesn’t have to necessarily prove anything in his complaint, but he has to have factual support to back up what he hopes to prove. Logically, any fact added to a complaint is intended to…