This week we could not resist writing about a good result from an always interesting jurisdiction (Louisiana) involving one of our all-time favorite defense lawyers (Hi, Lori Cohen).
In McGuire v. B. Braun Med. Inc., 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 184172, 2025 WL 2689205 (E.D. Louisiana Sept. 19, 2025), the district court granted the defendants’ motion to
Plaintiffs bring product liability suits against medical device manufacturers when outcomes fall short of expectations. Such as when a bone plate—a device surgically implanted to stabilize broken bones and enable proper healing—breaks. Now indulge us for a moment because Bexis and Yeary learned a lot about bone screws and orthopedic devices back in the day.
If Dante had practiced law, there’s a good chance he would have added a tenth circle of hell—discovery for defense attorneys. Imagine being slowly crushed under a mountain of PDFs, emails from 2007, and inexplicably sticky banker’s boxes. Let’s face it, some of us could update our bios to include—professional document archaeologist.
Discovery was theoretically
It is a truism in product liability matters that plaintiffs love state courts, whereas defense lawyers and our clients much prefer federal court. There are reasons for this. Twombly and Iqbal pleading standards are more rigorous than the pleading standards in many state courts. Federal judges often have fewer cases and more clerks than state
Just about three months ago, we blogged about Rule 25 dismissals in the Bair Hugger MDL, and today we bring you more of the same from Taxotere. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 25 provides that “[i]f a party dies . . . the court may order substitution of the proper party.” Rule 25 goes
In Cajun French “tracas” means trouble, or so the Internet says.
Bexis is updating the learned intermediary rule section of his product liability treatise, and he noticed a little tracas brewing in Louisiana. We’re calling it out so that defense counsel litigating in Louisiana are aware of it and (we hope) can do
We’ve noticed a recent uptick in product liability lawsuits brought against over the counter (OTC) and other consumer products. (Shameless plug: we will be on a panel discussing such litigation at ACI in NYC on January 23-24.). These are products that do not require a prescription. Maybe plaintiff lawyers prefer cases without any pesky learned intermediary who
The Fifth Circuit gave the plaintiff in Bruno v. Biomet, Inc., 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 213826 (E.D. La. Dec. 1, 2023) a second chance, but it was short lived. This case had been dismissed on statute of limitations grounds. On appeal, the Fifth Circuit reversed that holding and remanded the case for the district
We are in New Orleans for the annual DRI Drug & Medical Device Seminar, so we would be remiss if we passed up the opportunity to write on a Louisiana case. The case will sound familiar. We reported six months ago on the dismissal of a case brought by the same plaintiff alleging that benzene
Today we ponder “do-overs,” a timely topic as the House of Representatives struggles, over and over, to elect a speaker. As we write, the seventh unsuccessful vote has just concluded. We have learned that the record stands at 22 votes before the beleaguered candidate finally prevailed. This was in 1820, as John W. Taylor, an