Since it was published in 2011, the third edition of the Federal Judicial Center’s Reference Manual for Scientific Evidence has been the go-to guide for federal judges seeking to sort out scientific testimony, and a major source of non-precedential authority for both sides when arguing motions under Fed. R. Evid. 702. 2011, however, was fifteen
Today’s guest post is by Reed Smith‘s Jamie Lanphear. Like Bexis, she follows tech issues as they apply to product liability litigation. In this post she discusses a pro-plaintiff piece of legislation recently introduced in Congress that would overturn the current majority rule that electronic data is not considered a “product” for purposes
Today we have a guest post on some recent developments on whether strict liability applies to software, apps, artificial intelligence, and other forms of electronic data, which depends, as this 50-state survey addresses, on whether such intangible items meet the common-law definition of “product.” It is by Reed Smith attorneys (and repeat guest posters) Mildred
At a recent seminar, one of the sessions was a nuts-and-bolts discussion of conducting Internet, mostly social media, research into prospective jurors for voir dire purposes. It was quite interesting from a practical standpoint, but no law was cited that such research was even allowable (assuming courts could detect non-courtroom activities), and if so, what restrictions apply.
So we thought we’d take a look.Continue Reading Avoid Getting Into Trouble over Internet Research about Prospective Jurors
We have blogged several times about the somewhat esoteric issue of whether intangible items – chiefly computer software, website algorithms, and other electronic information – is treated as a “product” for purposes of imposing strict liability on their creators. It’s an interesting topic; Eric recently wrote a paper on it, and Bexis is putting together a “white paper” for the Product Liability Advisory Council on the same subject. From these exercises we concluded that a 50-state survey on intangibles as “products” for product liability purposes would be both doable and useful.Continue Reading How the Fifty States View Electronic Data as a “Product”
As regular readers know, we bloggers have been following the issue of whether software of various sorts – electronic bytes – is a “product” for product liability purposes. It’s a longstanding issue, since the current Restatements of Torts specifically defines a “product” as something “tangible,” which arrays of electrons are not. “A product is tangible
As a follow-on to our post last year about remote (Zoom) depositions), we received a suggestion that we examine MDL orders to see how they have been handling remote deposition procedure during the COVID-19 pandemic. That made sense to us because in MDLs every procedural jot and tittle is gone over with a fine-toothed comb.
We have been following the issue of potential product liability for software, including in connection with medical devices, for a while. Much of our attention, predictably, has been on FDA regulation of device software, including issues related to resistance to hacking to obtain information or cause harm. Like here, here, here, and
This last week of May has been a big one in the James Bond universe. It includes the birthdays of Ian Fleming, who wrote the books, of Richard Maibaum, who wrote many of the screenplays, and of Clifton James, who played the comically exasperated southern Sheriff in the Live and Let Die and The Man
We’ve seen stories lately that an increasing trend towards online sales of prescription drugs could become as much of a threat to retail drugstores as online shopping generally has become to department stores. For non-prescription drugs, that future is already here – just Google “OTC Drugs Online” and check out the results. Or