Photo of Bexis

As much as we liked those parts of In re DePuy Orthopaedics, Inc., Pinnacle Hip Implant Products Liability Litigation, 888 F.3d 753 (5th Cir. 2018) (applying Texas law), that overturned a half-billion dollar verdict caused by a combination of attorney misconduct and judicial lassitude, we also recognized the problematic effects of certain other Fifth Circuit rulings in that decision.  While the good parts of Pinnacle Hip were good enough to win that decision a spot in our 2018 top ten cases, that decision’s adverse aspects were bad enough that it also landed on our list of 2018’s worst ten decisions.  Specifically we observed:

The most serious error the court made was refusing to apply established Texas law that comment k precludes strict liability across the board.  Pinnacle Hip ignored – really ignored − a half dozen prior decisions (including one of its own) on this issue.  Even if there wasn’t any precedent (which there was), expanding state-law liability where the state courts have not is not the job of a federal court sitting in diversity.

Continue Reading Comment K, Presumptions, and Medical Device Design Defects Under Texas Law

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We do not care much about car racing.  Sure, we have seen some parts of some races on television, had toy racecars in our remote youth, and have craned our necks to see a few fancy “street legal” versions zooming past.  However, we have never attended a race in person and do not follow any

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Bostic v. Ethicon, Inc., 2022 WL 952129 (E.D. Pa. March 29, 2022), is a Pennsylvania mesh case raising a host of familiar issues in a motion to dismiss context. The complaint is of the typically overpleaded (14-count) variety. Dickens was not really paid by the word, but plaintiff lawyers seem to think they might

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We report, with excitement and apprehension, that we have tickets to see Hugh Jackman as Harold Hill in The Music Man next month on Broadway.  The Drug and Device Law Dowager Countess blushes and giggles at the mention of Jackman, and the outing seemed a worthy one, not without apparent urgency given time’s ravages (the

Photo of Rachel B. Weil

We find ourselves, once again, hungry for good news.  We just canceled a trip to see dear friends outside of Glacier National Park because Montana hospitals are so overfilled with anti-vax COVID patients that anyone with any medical emergency risks being turned away.  Afghanistan fell to the Taliban.  And, on a more “micro” level, we