It’s been a long road. Well after product liability litigation over Accutane and inflammatory bowel disease (“IBD”) had been thoroughly debunked everywhere else in the nation, such litigation lived on in New Jersey – for year after interminable year. First, a number of trials occurred, but literally every verdict for the plaintiffs was reversed on
It can sometimes be difficult for us here at the DDL Blog to address “mixed bag” cases. We are quite clear that we are a defense side blog. Love us or hate us – we don’t pull punches. We hoard and covet preemption and learned intermediary wins and treat each one like the gem that
Once again we find ourselves in the position of creating new defenses to a novel, plaintiff-side cause of action. This time, we’ve been doing a lot of thinking about innovator liability – the theory that would hold branded manufacturers liable for injuries allegedly caused by the ingestion of (preemption-immune) generic drugs on some kind of
This post is from the non-Dechert side of the blog.
While the recent Pennsylvania Superior Court Risperdal decision is not a defense victory, it is certainly not as favorable for plaintiffs as they are making it out to be. While several issues were presented for appeal in Stange v. Janssen Pharms., Inc., 2018 Pa.
Interestingly, it’s a case that is almost a year old that has us thinking about litigation tourism post Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court, 137 S. Ct. 1773 (2017). We know that plaintiffs’ forum shopping gamesmanship isn’t over. It’s just gotten a lot more difficult now that the Supreme Court has said non-resident plaintiffs
We remember how, shortly after the atrocious decision in Johnson & Johnson v. Karl, 647 S.E.2d 899 (W. Va. 2007), rejecting altogether the learned intermediary rule, litigation tourists visiting West Virginia argued that Karl represented that state’s “public policy” and therefore the learned intermediary rule could not apply even to their out-of-state cases under
We thought we understood statutes of limitations and choice-of-law rules in New Jersey. Until yesterday. That was when we read the New Jersey Supreme Court’s opinion in McCarrell v. Hoffmann-La Roche, Inc., No. 076524, 2017 WL 344449 (N.J. Jan. 24, 2017), which unhinged that state’s statute of limitations and choice-of-law jurisprudence from its own precedent and placed statutes of limitations in a special class without much explanation. And the court did all of this for the stated purpose of preserving plaintiffs’ claims and not “discriminating” against an out-of-state plaintiff’s ability to sue a New Jersey company in New Jersey, after the suit would be barred in the plaintiff’s home state.
How did we get here? Well, this is a New Jersey Accutane case, which tells you that it was contentious, as most things seem to be in that multi-county proceeding. Other than that, the facts in McCarrell are fairly typical—an out-of-state plaintiff (in this case a fellow from Alabama) who was prescribed a drug in his home state, used the drug in his home state, experienced alleged complications in his home state, and received medical treatment in his home state sued the drug’s manufacturer where the company is incorporated—in this case, New Jersey. McCarrell, at *3.
The rub in McCarrell was that the plaintiff’s claim was time barred under Alabama’s statute of limitations, but not under New Jersey’s statute of limitations, which includes a discovery rule. The choice of law therefore determined the outcome, which led the parties to contest the issue hotly in the trial court, the intermediate appellate court, and eventually the New Jersey Supreme Court.
Each court applied different rules, which is why this case is so interesting and why the Supreme Court’s opinion is so odd. We have long understood that the choice of forum does not determine the applicable substantive law. Sure, the forum’s procedural law applies, but the substantive law is determined by applying the forum state’s choice-of-law rules.
Last week, along with many of you, we attended the ACI Drug and Medical Device Conference in New York City. The quality of the presentations was uniformly high, and the collegiality and camaraderie were welcome, refreshing, and a lot of fun. There was plenty to drink. There was lots of food. Oh, and we got to see Hamilton! We should preface our comments by pointing out that we were skeptics – we knew how pricey (really, really pricey) tickets are, and we weren’t even positive we would enjoy this immensely innovative rap musical. To wit, one of our best beloved musicals of recent years was the wonderful, if short-lived, revival of Finian’s Rainbow that played the Great White Way a couple of years ago. We go for the traditional stuff, and had neither resources nor plans to spring for Hamilton.
But we got very lucky. A generous friend had bought four tickets a full year earlier in anticipation of the annual conference. And there was a last-minute cancellation. And we got to go. And it was worth all of the hype (and all of the money, if you have it). We enjoyed it so much that we came home and researched ticket availability to return with the Drug and Device Law Long-Suffering Companion. Tickets are on sale for next year, and we thought that we could avoid the crazy street prices by planning way ahead. Not so – even this far in advance, tickets (from official ticket sources, not ticket agencies) are way out of the reach of normal consumers. Sometimes, the early bird does not get the worm (or the greatest financial benefit).
And, with just a bit of creativity, we can glean the same message (among others) from today’s case. Dobbs v. DePuy Orthopedics, — F.3d —, 2016 WL 7015648 (Seventh Cir. Dec. 1, 2016), is an appeal of an attorney’s fee decision from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. (We’ll explain how it got there in a minute.) The plaintiff/appellant had direct-filed a product liability claim in the Hip Implant MDL in the Northern District of Ohio. Believing that the promised compensation was too low, he opted out of the global settlement and fired his lawyers, who had advised him to accept the global settlement, which included a 35% attorneys’ fee. (The global settlement provided one level of payment for unrepresented plaintiffs, and a second level, 35% higher, for represented plaintiffs.)
Less than two months after his lawyers withdrew their appearance, the plaintiff accepted the global settlement. Because he was considered “represented” for purposes of the settlement, he was paid the larger amount. (Not clear why he was considered “represented” when his lawyers had been fired.) His former lawyers asserted a lien on the award and sought to recover attorney’s fees. The MDL judge tried unsuccessfully to mediate the fee dispute in the Northern District of Ohio then transferred the case to the Northern District of Illinois, where the case would have been filed if the MDL had not been pending.
This post is from the non-Reed Smith side of the blog.
Choice of law doesn’t get too much attention here at the DDL blog. That is due in some part to the fact that there really isn’t a defense-oriented position to take on it. Which state’s law should apply is a very case-specific analysis and in any given case, you might come out differently. It really depends on which state’s law is more favorable to your legal arguments in a particular scenario. The second reason it probably doesn’t get much attention from us is that in most personal injury, products liability cases, plaintiff’s home state’s law governs – the law where the injury occurred.
But what about when a plaintiff lives in one state but seeks medical treatment in another. Not to be considered disparaging of the many excellent healthcare facilities in southern New Jersey (where this blogger resides), but when you live a stone’s throw from some of the leading specialists in the country who happen to be across the state line in Philadelphia, you take that ride across the Ben Franklin Bridge. That’s not an unusual situation, making the choice of law question of interest.
In Finnerty v. Howmedica Osteonics Corp., 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 123071, *2 (D. Nev. Sep. 12, 2016), plaintiff, a resident of Nevada, sought medical treatment from an orthopedic oncologist located in California. Plaintiff had cancer in his left leg that required either amputation of the leg or a total knee replacement. Plaintiff opted for the replacement and defendant’s modular replacement device was implanted. Id. At the time of surgery, plaintiff was “clinically obese.” Id. The surgery took place in March 2005 and plaintiff had no complications until 2011 – over 6 years later. Id. at *2-3. In August 2011, plaintiff started working as a shuttle driver for a car rental company. The job required him to lift luggage, weighing up to 80 pounds, on a repetitive basis. Id. at *3. In December 2011, while lifting luggage, plaintiff heard a “pop” in his left knee. During revision surgery, it was discovered that the implanted device had fractured. Id. Plaintiff continued to suffer complications and eventually his left leg was amputated.
Plaintiff sued the device manufacturer alleging failure to warn, negligence, strict liability design defect, manufacturing defect, and breach of express and implied warranty. Id. Defendant moved for summary judgment on all counts.
Today’s case is also about statute of limitations, but we thought adding that to the title would guarantee nobody read any further. None of these are what we’d call “page-turning” – or maybe in the blog world it should be “scroll-worthy” — topics. But, any one of them can be a game changer. When they combine to lead to a dismissal in circumstances that our readers may find themselves in, we think they are worth a mention. But we’ll make it quick.
As is so often the case, plaintiffs’ counsel gathered their clients and filed a single mass action lumping together plaintiffs from all over the country. Jaeger v. Howmedica Osteonics Corp., 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16493 at *7 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 10, 2016). The defendant, again in a fairly common response, moved to sever the individual misjoined cases and to transfer them to plaintiffs’ home districts. Id. at *8. Defendant’s motion was granted. The original misjoined complaint was filed in the Southern District of Illinois. Defendant is a New Jersey corporation. Plaintiff Jaeger resides in California, where she also received the medical treatment at issue in the case. Id. at *17. Plaintiff Jaeger’s case was therefore transferred to California.