This blogger took last week off – from everything except some sand, the ocean, and drinks with little umbrellas. And books! Books set in the post-Civil War era (The Book of Lost Friends), in post-World War I (The Last Train to Key West), during World War II (The Only Woman
That’s how Maryland’s highest court chose to characterize its gradual move from Frye to Daubert – a drifting process. Like the way the ocean drifts ashore as the tide is rising. Creeping a little higher, each wave covering and absorbing a little more of the beach. As it slowly inches toward your chair where you’re
As we approach the end of the year, we turn to reflecting on the events of the passing year. We do it here on the DDL blog with our best of and worst of posts. It is often a time to consider just how much (or how little) was accomplished in the course of a
Today is John Winston Lennon’s birthday. He would have turned 79 on this date but for a truly crazed assassin. Imagine stalking someone because of Catcher in the Rye! Lennon wrote many marvelous songs (we especially like his early stuff, such as “Hard Day’s Night,” “If I Fell,” and “Help”). But since this is the
A couple of weeks ago, the Drug and Device Law Dog Walker texted us midday to report that a coyote had been spotted in our suburban neighborhood and that we should be vigilant when the Drug and Device Law Little Rescue Dogs were out in the yard. We scoffed, insisting that it must have been
The Supreme Court’s opinion on personal jurisdiction in BMS v. Superior Court has already made a substantial impact, despite being on the books for a mere three weeks. That’s probably because it’s the Supreme Court and also because personal jurisdiction is an issue in every lawsuit filed, whether in state or federal court. Another reason
Today’s date is rich in literary history. It is the birthday of Vladimir Nabokov, one of two writers whose prose style makes us want to snap our Pilot Varsity pens in despair, so great is the gap between those authors’ mastery and our pedestrian scribblings. Perhaps the biggest laugh-out-loud moment a book ever gave us was from Lolita, when the Humbert character travels a long way to visit a family that has at least one member he is especially, um, interested in, only to be greeted at the train station by the patriarch, who shared “the news that his house had just burned down – possibly, owing to the synchronous conflagration that had been raging all night in my veins.”
Today is also the birthday of Henry Fielding, the great British novelist of the 18th century. In high school we were forced to read Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones, and we grumbled about it, especially upon getting a peek at the girth of Tom Jones (we mean the book). But the joy, wisdom, and energy of Fielding’s words, often propelling the most ribald adventures, converted our dread into a wholly unforced pleasure, indeed. There is a sentence in Tom Jones that stopped us abruptly in our tracks. Fielding on many occasions spoke directly to the reader, and at one point he explained his intention to “fill my pages with humour till mankind learn the good nature to laugh only at the follies of others and the humility to grieve at their own.” Has any writer ever articulated a more noble goal?
Continue Reading Maryland, My Maryland: Aldara Case Dismissed for Multiple Reasons
This post is from the non-Reed Smith side of the blog only.
It’s been a while since we’ve seen a legal reference to Scylla and Charybdis, the sea monsters of Greek myth who posed an intractable dilemma to all sailors who attempted to navigate between the two. It is a tried and true metaphor, like its modern English counterpart — between a rock and a hard place. But it is particularly fitting in products cases dealing with pre-market approved medical devices. So, even though it is another favorable InFuse decision and we probably would have blogged about it anyway, the court’s clever turn of phrase was enough to reel us in:
We’ve blogged several times about the nearly unanimously accepted proposition that FDA regulatory status – that is, the bare fact that a drug or medical device is used off-label – is not a medical risk, benefit, or alternative about which physicians must tell patients under the law of informed consent. Bexis in particular is emphatic
This post is not from the Dechert side of our tripartite blog.
We are particularly pleased with the result in Drager v. PLIVA USA, Inc., ___ F.3d ___, 2014 WL 292700 (4th Cir. Jan. 28, 2014), a generic preemption case that – like so many – involves metoclopramide/Reglan. Drager is the first appellate court