This post is from the non-Reed Smith side of the blog.
Dear Readers,
The tone of today’s missive may be slightly more formal than most. For you see, as a result of binge watching Bridgerton on Netflix, the written word is being narrated in our head by the incomparable Julie Andrews. We so greatly esteem
In very general terms, posts on specific court opinions fall into three categories: 1) ones we think are correct, 2) ones we think are incorrect, and 3) ones we think are mixed bags. Not terribly profound. Digging a bit deeper, we sometimes pick cases to discuss because we feel the need to vent about the
The decision in In re Bard IVC Filters Products Liability Litigation, 969 F.3d 1067 (9th Cir. 2020) (“Booker”), is yet another reminder that multidistrict litigation as it is currently conducted is a fundamentally flawed process, dedicated more to forcing settlements than to any of the goals envisioned by Congress when it passed
This is a quick-hit post bringing you two first-of-their-kind orders on proving causation in cases alleging inadequate drug or medical device warnings. In orders applying Georgia’s and Delaware’s versions of the learned intermediary doctrine, two different federal courts have held that a plaintiff alleging inadequate warnings cannot meet his or her burden of proving causation
This post is from the non-Reed Smith side of the blog.
It’s not a long decision – but there’s still a lot to it. Maybe that’s because there wasn’t a lot to plaintiff’s complaint. Regardless, Sharp v. St. Jude Medical, S.C., Inc., 2019 WL 3821895 (N.D.GA Aug. 14, 2019) makes some key defense rulings.
Today’s post is another guest post from friend of the Blog Kevin Hara, of Reed Smith, who channels our resident movie critic in this wide-ranging discussion of pleading and procedural weirdness. As always with our guest posts, the author deserves 100% of the credit, and any blame, for what follows.
**********
If ever
This post is from the non-Reed Smith side of the blog.
Last week when we posted about some motion in limine rulings coming out of the IVC Filters MDL, most of our blogging team were enjoying a calm week after being hit by two nasty Nor’easters. We were turning our thoughts to spring. Birds chirping,
Here in Philadelphia, less than a week before the first day of Spring, it is sunny and calm, albeit a bit chilly. Not so last week, when we were hit with the second Nor’easter in less than a week. As much as sixteen inches of snow fell in some suburbs, and thousands of people, some
In the annals of history, June 6 gets prime billing. That’s understandable, because the successful Normandy landings on D-Day (June 6, 1944), probably saved Western Civilization. (Or maybe that heroic endeavor simply preserved liberal democracy for another 75 years, now that we seem encircled by fanatics both home and abroad who view the Enlightenment
Sometimes it takes a lot of words to say something. The Iliad. War and Peace. SCOTUS’s Obergfell decision. But sometimes, in just a few words, it is possible to create an image, or stir a memory, or underscore a point. Call me Ishmael. I have a dream. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. And, apropos of sweet-smelling roses, today’s very short Georgia Supreme Court decision makes the point that expert opinions are expert opinions even when clothed as fact testimony, and must be excluded from evidence unless they meet the relevant admissibility standards. Yugueros v. Robles, 2016 WL 6407314 (Ga. Oct. 31, 2016), is not a drug or device decision. It is a medical malpractice case, but its holding is relevant for anyone who deals with opposing experts. Which we do, regularly and painfully. (You can see a recent post on a similar issue here.)
In Yugueros, the appellant performed extensive cosmetic surgery on the appellee’s decedent (his wife). Subsequently, Mrs. Robles went to the emergency room suffering from severe abdominal pain. After an abdominal x-ray, which the E.R. doctor determined to be “unremarkable,” Mrs. Robles was discharged. A radiologist who later saw the abdominal film could not rule out the presence of free air in the abdomen, which “could be a normal post-operative condition or could indicate a more serious issue.” Yugueros, 2016 WL 6407314 at *1. The radiologist recommended a CT scan and posted his opinion in Mrs. Robles’s electronic medical record.