We rarely get riled up about a decision related to removals and remands. A rejection of snap removal or a misapplication of Ruhrgas might quicken our nerdy pulses, but not engender our sense of outrage like many, many other things we have posted about through the years. However, we read a decision where a veteran
The now well-known requirement from the TwIqbal cases that a complaint contains factual allegations that establish that relief is plausible derives from Rule 8(a)(2) requirement that each pleading contain “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” One recurring point of contention in drug and device litigation
This post is from the non-RS side of the Blog.
Consider the following scenario. A fifty-two-year-old woman has end-stage left ventricular heart failure despite medical care and the latest medications. Her prospects for a heart transplant or the implantation of a left-ventricular assist device to prolong her life are limited, including by financial considerations. She
The learned intermediary rule – that prescription medical product warnings are directed to (and written to be understood by) the professional medical personnel who prescribe them – is as close to unanimous as any tort doctrine that we know of. We keep a running tab on the 50 states, and the rule has support in
We have spilled a lot of blog ink on Federal Rule of Evidence 702 recently, so it was nice to see a case from our home state of California driving home the importance of following the rules when it comes to expert opinions. California has a reputation for allowing expert opinions into evidence more permissively
Happy new year, and welcome to 2026. While we may still be pondering the meaning of auld lang syne or waxing philosophical about the new year, we’ll quickly move on and get to work defending our clients. That’s what we do as defense hacks, and kudos to all of you for doing it so well.
We’ve written many times about plaintiffs who try (and fail) to plead injury by alleging hypothetical risks, speculative future harm, or buyer’s remorse untethered to actual loss. Today’s dismissal of a putative class action from the Northern District of California is a new year’s reminder that Article III and statutory standing remain stubbornly real requirements. Druzgalski v. CVS Health Corp., 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 265766 (C.D. Cal. Dec. 23, 2025).
Continue Reading New Year, Same Old Standing Problems
Removal-rama continues. Art (if that is what you can call blogposting) mimics life. We have not just been blogging about removal cases lately, we’ve also been removing cases to federal court with startling frequency. And it’s been working. Twice, even with a removal basis that might be characterized as a jump ball, plaintiffs have not
Today’s guest post is from Dechert’s Chris McKeon who updates us on a rare application of the political question doctrine. As always, our guest posters deserve 100% of the praise (and any of blame) for their posts. Not that we expect the latter.
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In our earlier post, we explored whether the political question
Not long ago we published a blogpost, “New California Ranitidine Litigation Order Makes A Huge Mess Of Everything” about a California trial court decision that created, out of whole cloth, what it called a “hybrid theory” of strict liability that jumbled together elements of the long-established – and long separate – concepts of design and manufacturing defect, while sprinkling in the negligence concept of intent. See In re Rantidine Cases, 2025 WL 2796831 (Cal. Super. Sept. 15, 2025). As a result, the court allowed a “manufacturing” defect that was uniform across all units of the product, because it construed plaintiffs’ attack on the defendants’ manufacturing processes as a manufacturing defect.
In this post we will attempt to describe just how far out of bounds this “hybrid theory” really is.
Continue Reading California Design vs. Manufacturing Defects – Neer the Twain Shall Meet
We have always been flummoxed by California’s Sherman Law. That is the California statute that purports to incorporate by reference the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, supposedly making violations of that federal also offensive to state law. Why does this matter? Because there is no private right of under the FDCA, and 21 U.S.C. §