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The Dearinger case in the Western District of Washington provided a lot of defense friendly blog fodder. It made its way to the Washington Supreme Court for a certified question whether Washington would recognize a direct to consumer exception to the learned intermediary rule. The Washington Supreme Court answered that question with a resounding no.  Following that decision, the district court dismissed some of plaintiffs’ claims on an initial motion for summary judgement.  We blogged about that decision here.  The latest decision in Dearinger v. Eli Lilly & Co., 2024 WL 416848 (W.D. Wash. Feb. 5, 2024) serves up some nice defense nuggets applying the Washington Product Liability Act (WPLA) and refusing to let a sham affidavit create a fact issue.Continue Reading Last Nail in the Coffin for Dearinger

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We’ve noticed a recent uptick in product liability lawsuits brought against over the counter (OTC) and other consumer products. (Shameless plug: we will be on a panel discussing such litigation at ACI in NYC on January 23-24.). These are products that do not require a prescription. Maybe plaintiff lawyers prefer cases without any pesky learned intermediary who

Photo of Michelle Yeary

The Fifth Circuit gave the plaintiff in Bruno v. Biomet, Inc., 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 213826 (E.D. La. Dec. 1, 2023) a second chance, but it was short lived.  This case had been dismissed on statute of limitations grounds.  On appeal, the Fifth Circuit reversed that holding and remanded the case for the district

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California’s Proposition 65 has become a poster child for ineffective and counterproductive over-warning.  You know what we are talking about.  Prop 65 is the voter-enacted law that requires businesses to warn Californians about significant exposures to chemicals that allegedly cause cancer or birth defects.  See Cal. H&S Code § 25249.5 et seq.  A decent idea

Photo of Michelle Yeary

We say today’s case is about SIRVA (shoulder injury related to vaccine administration), but plaintiff tried her best to run from that allegation in her opposition to defendants’ motion to dismiss.  That’s because a SIRVA case runs up against not only a preemption obstacle, but also serious duty and causation barriers.  But since the court

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Way back in September 2012, we—in its Blog-specific veiled singular usage—did our first post.  We introduced ourselves with some rare first personal singular statements before proceeding to trash a Louisiana intermediate appellate court’s affirmance of a large verdict under Louisiana’s Medical Assistance Programs Integrity Law.  Among our criticisms was the lack of detail on