Last year we reported on Plourde v. Sorin Group USA, Inc., 2021 WL 736153 (D. Mass. 2021), which held that the plaintiff’s failure-to-warn claims were expressly preempted by 21 U.S.C. § 360k(a) because those claims were based on an alleged failure to report adverse events to the FDA and the plaintiff had not shown
Massachusetts
D. Mass. Rules for Defendant in Denying Remand and Finding No Personal Jurisdiction

Judge Burroughs up in Boston recently wrote a clear and correct opinion regarding corporate citizenship, principal place of business, personal jurisdiction, and jurisdictional discovery. She was short and to the point, and we will try to be so as well.
The case is Lopez v. Angiodynamics, Inc., 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 208161 (D. Mass. Oct.…
Massachusetts Sends Litigation Tourist Packing

What happens when a plaintiff from Kentucky sues a New York company in Massachusetts? The case gets tossed for lack of personal jurisdiction. That is exactly what happened in Kingston v. Angiodynamics, Inc., 2021 WL 3022320 (D. Mass. Jul. 16, 2021). It is what should have happened in Hammons v. Ethicon, Inc., 240…
Thorny Questions Raised by Lanham Act Claim Better Left to FDA

It’s a Sunday night after an incredibly jam-packed weekend of activities. The family, mother, father and two teens, decide to end the weekend with a movie. A nice wind down before another hectic week begins. A few minutes in, the father remarks: don’t I know that actress from something else? To which mother offers –…
First Circuit Closes Front and Back Door on Massachusetts Pharmacy Liability Case

This blogger took last week off. Not just from blogging, but from the confines of home and office – which are still one and the same. During those five days of much needed sun and sea, we had a friend stay at the house to watch the dog. Our dog/house sitter cleared out before we…
Another Strike Against Failure to Report Claims

This time out of Massachusetts. And in an opinion authored by a female judge. This isn’t something we would normally take the time to point out, but as we embark on the 39th Women’s History Month, the combination of Massachusetts and a female judge stood out to us. After all, Massachusetts was home to…
Defense Win in Massachusetts*

Make no mistake about it – the result of Dunn v. Genzyme Corp., 2021 Mass LEXIS 84 (Mass. SJC Jan. 29, 2021) – is what we want. Dismissal of all of plaintiff’s claims for failure to plead them with the necessary factual support. But sometimes results need context and sometimes that context is not…
Trick or Treat? The Ghost of Pelvic Mesh Haunts Medical Device Litigation

The Pelvic Mesh MDLs are now all but over, with all but a few stragglers either settled or remanded. But the specious logic used in that litigation to overturn decades of precedent that had recognized compliance with FDA regulatory actions as relevant and admissible evidence, is still afoot to haunt medical device manufacturers. As we’ve…
The Age of Reptiles

We are rounding the final curve of the Fall academic calendar, so now come the sessions in the litigation class we teach at Penn Law when we discuss story-telling. It is not as if we have anything novel to say. The best (most attention-getting, understandable, memorable, and persuasive) stories are ones we have already heard…
Defendants Bat .400 in Gadolinium Case

The last baseball player to reach a .400 batting average for a season was Ted Williams in 1941. In a sport that probably keeps more stats than any other, baseball sees records broken and milestones reached all the time. Some marks, however, appear to be set in stone. One of these is Ted Williams’s 1941…