There’s trouble brewing in the North Star State.
We joked last spring that you’d soon see an article titled, “Minnesota, Heal Thyself!” And we posted this summer about Minnesota seemingly being on the road to recovery.
Here’s an update: Minnesota is not yet recovered, and our concern has now hit the legal mainstream.
The ABA
We’ve been asked two questions repeatedly since the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Warner-Lambert v. Kent. We’re answering both of them publicly today.
First, we have no idea why the Supreme Court took the case. No one does. (Well, actually, nine people know, but they wear robes, and they’re not talking.)
There are two
This guest post was written by Sean P. Costello. Mr. Costello is an associate resident in the Atlanta office of Jones Day. This post is entirely his work. It, of course, represents only his views, and not the views of his clients or firm:
On June 2, Beck and Herrmann posted about the
Plaintiffs’ counsel in aggregate litigation frequently have one goal: To try something — anything! — on an aggregated basis. If a defendant is confronting the aggregated claims of thousands (or more) plaintiffs, then the defendant is at huge risk and is likely to be coerced into settling, no matter the merits of the individual plaintiff’s
We love the choice-of-law issues that arise in multidistrict litigation.
Are we weird, or what?
The most recent judge to wrestle with MDL choice-of-law issues is Judge Eldon Fallon in In re Vioxx Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 1657, slip op. (E.D. La. Mar. 22, 2007). In typical mass tort multidistrict litigation, diversity cases
We practice in New Jersey a lot – because so many of our pharmaceuticals clients are based there, and the state’s trial courts have tended to allow plaintiffs from all over the country to file there and avoid removal to federal court in diversity actions. New Jersey also just happens to have one of the
We read at the Mass Tort Litigation Blog about Professor Samuel Issacharoff’s forthcoming article on choice of law in class actions that will appear in the Columbia Law Review. Professor Issacharoff apparently argues that the enactment of the Class Action Fairness Act lends strength to the position that courts should apply a defendant-corporation’s home state
It won’t surprise anyone to learn that we’re not big fans of Judge Tunheim’s recent class certification decision in In re St. Jude Medical, Inc. Silzone Heart Valves Products Liability Litigation. Judge Tunheim adopted the distinct minority view, holding that the District of Minnesota could apply Minnesota consumer protection statutes to a nationwide class
On Wednesday, November 22, Judge Fallon issued his decision denying class certification for the Vioxx personal injury cases. That decision fits squarely in the mainstream of current class action jurisprudence in pharmaceutical product liability cases. If Baycol, Paxil, Prempro, Propulsid, and Rezulin, for example, could not be certified for classwide treatment, then it’s hard to