Happy New Year. We are doing that usual January/Janus thing of looking both backwards and forwards. We are gearing up for a massive litigation in 2025, for a couple of trials, and for the January 16 Drug and Device Law webinar on the best and worst cases of 2024. And we’re still finding some 2024
Sometimes bench-bar conferences are actually useful. Last week we wrote a post about a district court’s application of the New York statute of limitations to shut down a product liability lawsuit. The key holding was that the statute of limitations began to run as soon as the plaintiff experienced relevant symptoms. There was no need
(The Butler Snow members of the DDL blog had nothing to do with today’s post.)
Intricate issues of New York law have been in the news lately — but that has been about criminal law. By contrast, New York’s application of the statute of limitations in civil tort cases did not surface on CNN, Fox
For many years, even before the Supreme Court picked up the ball, we have been arguing that “stop selling” theories of liability for alleged injuries from prescription drugs should not be viable. This is not just a preemption issue. Basic product liability principles do not square easily with liability contingent on developing one drug
We don’t usually blog about statute of limitations cases because the issues tend be state and fact specific. But Boyd v. Allergan PLC, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 115779 (D. Org. Jul. 6, 2023) addresses a fact situation we see repeated often enough in medical device cases that we thought it was worth reporting on.
We’ve written several posts about ridiculous absolute liability theories seeking to hold drug manufacturers liable simply for making an FDA approved prescription drug. Wilkins v. Genzyme Corp., 2022 WL 4237528 (D. Mass. Sept. 14, 2022), is an even stranger claim, with the plaintiff seeking to hold the defendant liable for not manufacturing a prescription drug. Fortunately, in Wilkins, those claims (several theories alleging essentially the same thing) did not state a claim.Continue Reading No Liability for Not Manufacturing a Product
When we say “bananas,” today’s case is actually about bananas, that herb people tend to call a fruit. It is also quite unusual and complicated. Because it also involves some tragic underlying events, our quips are done. A bit of etymology is warranted, though. We used the term “judge-made law” in the title and that
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,
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
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