By their very nature, prescription only medical devices—particularly those that require surgical implantation—are complex products, the design and manufacture of which are not lay person knowledge. So, if you are going to claim such a device malfunctioned, you are going to have to prove it with expert evidence. This is a well-known legal concept. Yet
This post is from the non-Butler Snow side of the blog.
When you represent medical device manufacturers in product liability litigation, you will deal with allegations that a device broke or failed because of what it was made from, and you will encounter both experts and “experts” (scare quotes intended) in materials science.
Materials science
Today we report on Black v. DJO Glob., Inc., — P.3d —-, 2021 WL 2346038 (Idaho 2021), a short and sweet decision rejecting yet another plaintiff’s attempt to maintain a product-liability claim without evidence of a defect in the medical device at issue. Holding that neither the “malfunction theory” nor the related res ipsa