The latest medical device express preemption decision, Wieder v. Advanced Bionics LLC, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 70645, 2026 WL 880370 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 31, 2026), comes out of the Southern District of New York and involves a Class III, PMA‑approved cochlear implant.
Fluid allegedly worked its way into the device and caused a short‑circuit and device
The district court’s order applying Michigan law and dismissing one plaintiff’s complaint in the Tapezza MDL may be the last of a dying breed. The court faithfully enforced Michigan’s statute providing a presumption of non-defectiveness for FDA approved drugs and dismissed the plaintiffs’ case. But alas, Michigan repealed that law effective February 13, 2024, thus
The Dearinger case in the Western District of Washington provided a lot of defense friendly blog fodder. It made its way to the Washington Supreme Court for a certified question whether Washington would recognize a direct to consumer exception to the learned intermediary rule. The Washington Supreme Court answered that question with a resounding no. Following that decision, the district court dismissed some of plaintiffs’ claims on an initial motion for summary judgement. We blogged about that decision here. The latest decision in Dearinger v. Eli Lilly & Co., 2024 WL 416848 (W.D. Wash. Feb. 5, 2024) serves up some nice defense nuggets applying the Washington Product Liability Act (WPLA) and refusing to let a sham affidavit create a fact issue.
Continue Reading Last Nail in the Coffin for Dearinger
We have been monitoring litigation involving tenofovir-based HIV medication for some time now. We reported a few weeks ago on oral argument in the California Court of Appeal, where the parties debated a novel “duty to innovate” under California law. We also gave you our view on the 2019 order that many say kickstarted these
Florida courts are handling a lot of lawsuits. Lots and lots of lawsuits, and for a convergence of reasons. Backlogs from pandemic-related closures and delays. The highest per capita rate of federal court personal injury cases in the country by some measures. Claims over last year’s Category 4 Hurricane Ian. Recent tort law changes
If the pelvic mesh litigation ever ends, the tongue of history will tell a tale of specious plaintiff theories that hoodwinked judges and juries into condemning good products. Plaintiffs extracted millions of dollars and erased product lines by cobbling together irrelevant workplace material handling sheets, counterfactual stories in which the FDA does not exist, and
Multidistrict litigations are big piles of wrong. Wrong incentives invite the wrong cases, the wrong rulings, and the wrong results. Plaintiff lawyers park weak cases in MDLs, counting on ultimately collecting money for cases into which they invested virtually no work. Courts encourage that dysfunctional conduct by doing everything possible to force settlements, even if
Covid has altered how and where we practice law. Along the way, it has also improved our exercise regimen. Every couple of days, we receive bankers boxes of binders and documents and then tote them upstairs to what passes for our home office.
For some reason, that makes us think of hernia mesh litigation.
Cosh
When we head into a trial against a personal injury plaintiff, our client, the defendant, occupies the right side of the v. We mean that simply as a matter of word placement. It is Plaintiff v. Defendant, not the other way around (though on appeal the parties can be scrambled). By “right” side, we are
In these strangest of times, we find ourselves seeking comfort in the familiar. Many times each day, we dial the numbers of faraway loved ones, just to hear their voices (the twenty-something Drug and Device Law Rock Climber has threatened to block our number). We gravitate toward favorite foods of our childhood (we just resorted