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In Clemens v. DaimlerChrysler Corp., 534 F.3d 1017 (9th Cir. 2008), the court, applying California law, correctly “decline[d plaintiff’s] invitation to create a new exception” to that state’s privity requirement “that would permit [plaintiff’s] action to proceed.”  Id. at 1023-24.  “[A] federal court sitting in diversity is not free to create new exceptions” to state law limiting liability.  Id. at 1024 (citing Day & Zimmermann, Inc. v. Challoner, 423 U.S. 3, 4 (1975)).  D&Z held, as we’ve discussed many times:

A federal court in a diversity case is not free to engraft onto those state rules exceptions or modifications which may commend themselves to the federal court, but which have not commended themselves to the State in which the federal court sits.

423 U.S. at 4.  And the Supreme Court has kept on saying this.  Erie principles prohibit “federal judges” from “displac[ing] the state law that would ordinarily govern with their own rules.”  Boyle v. United Technologies Corp., 487 U.S. 500, 517 (1988).  “[A] federal court is not free to apply a different rule however desirable it may believe it to be, and even though it may think that the state Supreme Court may establish a different rule in some future litigation.”  Hicks v. Feiock, 485 U.S. 624, 630 n.3 (1988).

But when updating the learned intermediary section of his treatise, Bexis came across a peculiar MDL holding, that because a defendant supposedly “cite[d] no cases” for the proposition “that the learned intermediary doctrine should apply to Plaintiffs’ . . . consumer protection claims” under the laws of California, Maryland, Illinois, and Florida, then “the learned intermediary doctrine should not apply” to claims brought by plaintiffs in any of these states.  In re Natera Prenatal Testing Litigation, 664 F. Supp.3d 995, 1007-08 (N.D. Cal. 2023).  The decision did not cite any precedent from any of these states (not even a trial court decision) affirmatively creating any exception to the learned intermediary rule for consumer fraud claims.  Id.Continue Reading Debunking Another Stunningly Wrong MDL Expansion of Liability

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As many of you no doubt already know, the federal judiciary’s Committee on Rules of Practice & Procedure gave its final approval to new Fed. R. Civ. P. 16.1, concerning MDL practice, on June 4.  Here’s some commentary.  We’ve also mentioned the proposed rule here on the Blog.  Bexis went so far as to file an extensive comment on the proposed rule, primarily decrying the frequency with which MDL judges simply ignored the existing federal rules – most significantly (although hardly exclusively) those rules that act to weed out meritless claims in non-MDL situations.

Throughout the process that led to new Rule 16.1, the drafters consistently refused to impose any mandatory procedures at all for early vetting of the hordes of meritless to utterly frivolous claims that are routinely filed in mass tort MDLs.  Thus, we bloggers were skeptical that all the effort to create a new, entirely voluntary list of potential MDL management tools was worth the candle.  Indeed, new Rule 16.1 stands out like a sore thumb among the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, precisely because it lacks any mandatory requirements.  The new rule has lots of “shoulds” but practically no “shalls.”  See Approved Committee Note and Text of Fed. R. Civ. P. 16.1.

Taking a closer look, we now believe that, if used according to its terms, new Rule 16.1 would actually be better than no rule at all, albeit not by a lot.  MDL cases now comprise over 70% of the total federal caseload, so we still believe it is ludicrous that those cases are not subject to a single mandatory MDL-specific rule.  But Rule 16.1 it is what it is.Continue Reading New Rule 16.1 – Better Than Nothing, But Not by a Lot

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Last week we alluded to the utility of bench-bar conferences.  As if to prove that point, we spent Thursday and Friday at a conference on Multidistrict Litigations.  The conference was focused on the sources of, and possible solutions to, “protracted” MDL proceedings.  John Rabiej put the conference together, and that pretty much guarantees that the…

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We have spilled a good deal of ink on the Valsartan MDL.  The back-end of the blog says 18 posts (and counting) already reference Valsartan.  Why so many?  Because they usually are so bad.  Today’s post is more of the same.  Hence the deep sigh.

Today’s Valsartan opinion, In re Valsartan, Losartan, & Irbesartan Products…

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Depending on your age, today’s title may evoke images of Hayley Mills or Lindsay Lohan.  We won’t ask you which.  It can be your secret.  But in an industry where remakes are rarely worth the price of admission, the Parent Trap is a rare exception, and we won’t fault you for liking both.  Today’s parent…

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For as long as we have been representing drug and device companies in product liability litigation, the plaintiffs have accused our clients of “buying the science.”  Sometimes, this has allegedly been by funding studies or offering support to outside researchers such as free product or access to administrative support.  Sometimes, this has allegedly been by…

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In 1919, J. Edgar Hoover described Communism as a “conspiracy so vast” that it was impossible for the populace to comprehend it.  The Palmer Raids and the first Red Scare soon followed.

That phrase echoed in our minds when we first read In re Valsartan, Losartan, & Irbesartan Products Liability Litigation, 2023 WL 1818922 (D.N.J. Feb. 8, 2023).  The Valsartan opinion was similarly mind-boggling in its scope.  It certified not one, not two − but four class actions:  one for economic loss, one for third-party payors (“TPPs”), and two for medical monitoring (“remedy” and “independent claim”).  Id. at *3.  Compare that to the state of class action precedent in product liability litigation not too long ago when we made this statement in 2007:

As far as we know, there has not been a single contested class action in product liability, personal injury litigation that’s been affirmed anywhere in the federal system in the decade since the Supreme Court put the kibosh on such things with its Ortiz and AmChem decisions.  That’s not limited to just pharmaceuticals, that’s every kind of product that’s made.

Four in a single MDL order?  These class certifications glommed together no less than 111 consumer and TPP subclasses.  Valsartan, 2023 WL 1818922, at *24.  These class certifications combined 428 different pharmaceutical products, produced and marketed by 28 separate defendants, with claims governed by the laws of 52 separate jurisdictions.  There’s no way on earth that common issues could predominate over individual ones, or that this morass could possibly be tried to a jury.Continue Reading An Abuse of Discretion So Vast….  Our Long-Delayed Critique of the Valsartan MDL Class Action Certifications

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In our recent ediscovery for defendants update, we highlighted two of the twenty-eight cases we included as the most important:  In re Tasigna (Nilotinib) Products Liability Litigation, 2023 WL 6064308 (Mag. M.D. Fla. Sept. 18, 2023), and Davis v. Disability Rights New Jersey, 291 A.3d 812 (N.J. Super. App. Div. March 16, 2023).  Today we’re explaining why.Continue Reading The Two Most Significant New Ediscovery for Defendants Decisions

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This post is from the non-Reed Smith side of the blog.

We don’t usually report on securities-law cases, but today we do. That is because the well-reasoned decision in question, In re Allergan PLC Securities Litigation, 2022 WL 17584155 (S.D.N.Y. 2022), has major implications for the parallel Textured Breast Implant MDL now pending in…

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FDA-regulated products now account for an estimated one-fifth of overall economic activity in the U.S. They have also been the focus of a litigation explosion. This timely guide covers all aspects of litigation involving drugs, medical devices, vaccines and other FDA-regulated prescription products.
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