We were going back through some old cases the other day and came across a gem from our hometown court right here in in San Francisco. It caught our eye because it deals with an angle of federal preemption on which we have written before and which we think is underappreciated, so we’re going to
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
We’d like the answer to that question to be – most of the time. But that’s too much to hope for. After all, lawsuits are brought in California. With its plaintiff-friendly laws, indeed, California is an often sought after venue by mass tort products liability plaintiffs. But, according to a recent California appellate court
We have always wondered why judges are hesitant to sever the claims of plaintiffs who never should have joined their claims together in the first place. You know what we mean—multiple plaintiffs, sometimes dozens of them, who join their claims together in one complaint based only on the allegation that they used the same or
Sort of like hail in Alabama. It happens, but when it does it’s an event. Not like say picking a perfect NCAA March Madness bracket (1 in 2.4 trillion). Maybe more like the chance of getting struck by lightning in a lifetime (1 in 13,000). In any case, a California trial court decision finding no
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
In a significant preemption decision clipping the wings of California consumer protection plaintiffs, two identical decisions: Borchenko v. L‘Oreal USA, Inc., ___ F. Supp.3d ___, 2019 WL 3315288 (C.D. Cal. July 18, 2019), and Borchenko v. L‘Oreal USA, Inc., 2019 WL 3315289 (C.D. Cal. July 18, 2019) (differing only by docket number, as
We know that most of our clients, manufacturers of prescription medical products (for purposes of this post), if they have insurance at all, have coverage that is subject to large self-insured retentions (“SIRs”). While the Blog doesn’t usually follow insurance matters, the decision discussed in this guest post is very good news for insureds
You’ll find plenty of decisions from the amiodarone litigation discussed on the blog. Not surprisingly, because it is a generic drug, they almost exclusively focus on Mensing preemption – or we should say on plaintiffs’ attempts to bypass Mensing. But there are cases involving exposure to the branded product as well. And earlier this
Earlier this month we explained that a “wrinkle removal,” was one that capitalized on a “wrinkle” in the language of 28 U.S.C. § 1441(b)(2), which provides that a case cannot be removed on the basis of diversity if any “properly joined and served” defendant is a citizen of the forum state. But if the forum