Legal problems are often multi-faceted. Turned one way, the problem looks like one issue. Turn it around, and a different issue glimmers in your eye.
For example, in Saulsby v. Amphastar Pharm., Inc., __ S.E.2d ___, 2025 N.C. App. LEXIS 420, 2025 WL 1812450 (N.C. App. July 2, 2025), the North Carolina Court of
The word of the day is targeted. Targeted discovery on a targeting device and a district court laser-focused on the failure to warn causation target. The end result is a decisive defense win on failure to warn. See In re Biozorb Device Prods. Liab. Litig., 1:23-cv-10599-ADB, No. 1:22-CV-11895-ADB, 2025 WL 509834 (D. Mass. Feb.
This post is from the non-Reed Smith side of the blog only.
Mismatch your socks – you’re bold. Mismatch your shoes – you’re frazzled. Mismatch plates on a dining table – your creating ambience. Mismatch your pizza with pineapple – well don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. Treat the law like it’s your socks
Developments in the Rouviere v. DePuy litigation have already produced two of our blogposts. Rouviere v. DePuy Orthopaedics, Inc., 471 F. Supp.3d 571 (S.D.N.Y. 2020), which we discussed here, produced one of the first major decisions of the COVID-19 pandemic on remote depositions as the “new normal.” Then, Rouviere v. DePuy Orthopaedics, Inc.
We are feeling happy and grateful this week. On Sunday, we were able to hug the Drug and Device Law Dowager Countess for the first time in fourteen months and to share a Mothers’ Day meal with her and our siblings, all fully vaccinated and past the waiting period. The Countess is closer to 90
We understand the value of branching out and trying new things. Recently, a close companion prevailed upon us to try calamari (thumbs down). We signed up for a Zoom acting class during the pandemic. And we are seriously considering a “new” hair color, to take advantage of the natural phenomenon that has occurred during the
The district judge in the In re Zimmer Nexgen Knee Implant Products Liability Litigation MDL issued a summary judgment order in October 2016 that we called “the best Wisconsin law decision we have ever seen.” What was the reason for our unusually unbridled enthusiasm? The district judge debunked the idea that the learned
We don’t often get to discuss decisions from Maine. In fact, a quick spin through the blog and you’ll see Maine really only comes up in various canvases or surveys of state law. We don’t dislike the state. We love the lobster — that they take very seriously. We can’t say we love the winters
We’ve made no secret of our dislike of the so called “heeding presumption.” We have a tag on this subject with multiple posts decrying this presumption — that juries may presume that if an alternative adequate warning had been given, it would have been heeded by the plaintiff (or, in prescription medical product cases, the
Devoted as we are to the defense of manufacturers of prescription drugs and medical devices, we have often advocated for the full implication of the fundamental—to us, at least—requirements that warnings claims focus on the decision making of the learned intermediary and that proximate cause matters. One implication is that heeding presumptions typically make little sense for claims about these products. It is one thing to say that a plaintiff should be allowed to proceed with a warnings claim when a prescriber is truly unavailable to provide testimony—like by dying before the plaintiff knew he had a claim—and the alleged missing warning would have clearly contraindicated the plaintiff from receiving the prescription product. In such a case, it might make sense to presume, absent contrary evidence, that the physician would have heeded the warning and not prescribed the product to the plaintiff. In just about every other prescription drug and device case we can imagine, the heeding presumption does not make sense.
We feel the same way about a post-sale duty to warn. Not only do such duties run contrary to the typical focus in warnings cases on the notice to the manufacturer of potential risks before the product leaves its control (or is prescribed to plaintiff), but the proximate cause inquiry can quickly become an exercise in layered speculation. Cases acknowledging such a post-sale duty have typically involved situations where the seller had a continuing relationship with the purchaser, with an obvious route for relaying additional information about the product in a way that allows a jury to evaluate whether injury would have been avoided. In prescription drug and device cases, there tends not to be any direct relationship at any time and the manufacturer does not know the names or addresses of patients using its products. Over time, patients move, change their physicians, and even see physicians for reasons unrelated to the reason they were prescribed a drug or device in the past. Over time, manufacturers also stop selling specific products or product lines and may even go out of business. When it comes to drugs with alleged remote effects or devices that are implanted for many years, these real world considerations make potentially unlimited post-sale duties to warn a folly. We could go on, but we will not.Continue Reading Heeding Presumption Only Goes So Far In Post-Sale Warning Case