This post is from the non-Reed Smith side of the blog.
This blog has repeatedly lamented the tendency of MDL courts to flout federal pleading standards when assessing the sufficiency of master complaints. All too often MDL courts disregard Rule 8(a), which—as authoritatively interpreted by the Supreme Court in Twombly and Iqbal—requires plaintiffs to
Ray Charles’s musical threat of “tell your Ma, tell your Pa, gonna send you back to Arkansas” doesn’t sound so bad to us after reading Green v. Bayer Corp., 2021 WL 687024 (E.D. Ark. Feb. 22, 2021). The plaintiff alleged injuries from a permanent contraceptive device and brought claims for negligent training, negligent risk
Happy St. Patrick’s Day. We will not be talking about corned beef (which we revere) and cabbage (which we revile) today. Something different is on the menu.
A couple of weeks ago we were delighted to report on a Ninth Circuit affirmance of a decision by one of our former AUSA colleagues. This week we
In the third of the three significant decisions issued in the In re Zantac MDL, No. 2924, on New Year’s Eve, preemption prevailed again – this time barring claims asserted against drug retailers and pharmacists, both branded and generic. In re Zantac (Ranitidine) Products Liability Litigation, ___ F. Supp.3d ___, 2020 WL 7864585 (S.D.
Could a tax case ever make for interesting reading? To our surprise, the answer is Yes. In our end-of-year excavation of older cases we missed when they first came out, we unearthed Rowitz v. Tax Commisioner of Ohio, 2019 WL 7489061 (Ohio Ct. App. Dec. 31, 2019). The plaintiffs in that case applied for
We slipped our summer vacation in just before summer slipped away. Last week, we walked the rocky shores of Cape Cod, ate lobstah rolls the size of trolley cars, and navigated our way through the traffic catastrophes charmingly known in New England as “rotaries.” On our last day in the Bay State, the temperature plunged.
Sometimes we write on issues for peculiar reasons. Today, for example, a case on a certain topic caught our eye because of its catchy name: Clark v. Perfect Bar. So many questions arise from this concise, yet provocative tag. Did the owner of the 100-year-old brand Clark Bar get sideways with a modern upstart
Back in the Pleistocene era when we toiled in law school, it seemed as if modern tort law developed as the result of a cross-continental game of ping pong played between the California and New Jersey courts. That still seems to be the case. Sure, there is the occasional, horrific verdict in flyover country that
Why does that last half-inch of conditioner seem to last as long as the entire rest of the bottle? This question is merely the philosophical beginning of our morning ablutions. The time is not billable. Pity. But rinse and renewal are not irrelevant to our thinking. Fresh face, fresh mind. Some of the best ideas
Last week we discussed the Jacob v. Mentor Worldwide, LLC case, in which a pro se plaintiff alleged injuries from breast implants and complained that the manufacturer had inadequately warned of the risks. The claim boiled down to an attack on the FDA-approved labeling of a class III medical device, and that meant it was