To borrow from the bartender with the twang and the bouffant at Bob’s Country Bunker, this blog’s got both kinds of medical products liability litigation – drug and device. And, while the difference between country and western music may be lost outside of Kokomo (and presumably Nashville), the difference between drugs and devices, admittedly
Indiana
Plaintiff Inches Out Summary Judgment Win on Design Defect

It’s football season! That means beautiful fall weather, tailgating, pots of chili, rooting your favorite team to victory, and wallowing in their losses. It’s Army v. Navy and Ohio State v. Michigan. It’s Packers v. Bears and Steelers v. Ravens. If you are a true fan of the game, it doesn’t matter that in a…
Zantac Chronicles V – Medical Monitoring and the Wheels Coming Off

Still more Zantac MDL dismissal orders.
Today’s installment grants dismissal of the plaintiffs’ medical monitoring claims, and also sheds some light on the questionable factual basis of everything being asserted in this MDL. As we’ve pointed out in our prior posts (such as this one), plaintiffs allege that the active ingredient in this drug…
N.D. Indiana Dismisses Pelvic Mesh Negligent Misrepresentation and Unjust Enrichment Claims

If hard cases make bad law, big cases make really bad law. No cases are bigger than product liability multidistrict litigations. Some have populations dwarfing the towns where many of you were raised. Perhaps it is the high stakes involved, or perhaps it is the judicial obsession with settling many thousands of cases ASAP, but…
S.D. Indiana Limits Punitive Damages in Acetaminophen/TEN Case

Uncertainty plagues American litigation and accounts for the frequent analogy to a lottery. The same case tried before two different juries will produce two very different results. Within the same jurisdiction, a plaintiff might ring the bell this week, but get zeroed out the next. Factor in different jurisdictions, and the possibilities will wander all…
What Happens When You Peel an Onion (or a Complaint) — It Gets Smaller

About two months ago we wrote the post Complaints Are Like Onions, They Have Layers about the need for courts to “address the viability of each claim” on a motion to dismiss. Bayer Corporation v. Leach, 2020 WL 3118509 at *1 (Ind. S. Ct. Jun. 12, 2020). Complaints need to be pulled apart and…
Complaints are Like Onions, They Have Layers

If, like this blogger, you had small children in the early 2000s, subconsciously you may have read today’s title with a Scottish brogue. That’s because it might recall a scene from Shrek where Mike Myers (Shrek) and Eddie Murphy (Donkey) are having a philosophical conversation about the many and varied attributes of ogres. “Ogres are…
All Not So Quiet on the Midwestern Front – Kaiser Continues String of Mesh Defeats

If asbestos litigation reminds of the 100 Years War, and the Bone Screw litigation recalls (for us) the winning side of the Franco-Prussian War, or Napoleon’s Italian Campaign − pelvic mesh litigation seems like something out of a different war. Try World War I. It’s not quite the Somme (at least not yet) but more…
When California Law Doesn’t Apply

We’d like the answer to that question to be – most of the time. But that’s too much to hope for. After all, lawsuits are brought in California. With its plaintiff-friendly laws, indeed, California is an often sought after venue by mass tort products liability plaintiffs. But, according to a recent California appellate court…
Guest Post – Indiana District Court Dismisses Plaintiff’s Lawsuit Against Pharmaceutical Manufacturer For Disclosure of Private Health Information
We have another guest post today, from Reed Smith‘s own Erica Yen. This one is about a recent, interesting decision concerning the interaction between the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (“HIPAA”) and the common law – with a good result this time. As always, our guest bloggers are 100% responsible for their posts,…