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Under Fed. R. Evid. 9(b), “[i]n alleging fraud or mistake, a party must state with particularity the circumstances constituting fraud or mistake.”  In our sphere, federal courts are quite variable in how they apply this standard when deciding 12(b)(6) motions.  In particular, MDLs seem to have an unfortunate habit of allowing general allegations to support

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Famous (and infamous) Illinois trial lawyer Clarence Darrow once said that he never wished a man dead, but had occasionally read some obituaries with great satisfaction.  (That same quote is sometimes incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain.) 


We’re no Darrow. We’ve never saved a client from capital punishment, or discredited a former presidential candidate in a

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A little over a year ago, the Supreme Court heard argument in Ford Motor Co. v. Montana Eight Judicial District Court, 141 S.Ct. 1017 (2021) regarding an issue of personal jurisdiction.  At that time, we tried our hand at reading the tea leaves and made this prediction about how the Ford Motor decision might adversely

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The Xarelto personal injury claims settled in 2019 after six bellwether trials all ended with defense verdicts.  What remained, until now, were several third-party payor (health insurers, “TPPs”) actions that have been dormant for almost six years.  Despite the passage of time, the motions before the court in 2021 were to dismiss under Rules 12(b)(6)

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Before we turn to today’s case, a quick update:  when last we spoke, we were about to board a plane for Peoria – our first work trip in sixteen months.  We were excited about it.  We regret to report that we stepped out of the plane into something resembling a weird post-apocalyptic Mad Max movie. 

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Critics have been known to accuse us of being too hard on product liability plaintiffs and too forgiving of defendants who develop medical products.  We all have our biases, especially after many collective decades of representing the latter group, but we do think the table is often tilted in favor of the former group.  One