People have long been fascinated by robots. Way before the term was coined in a 1920 play or Isaac Asimov popularized it, there were stories about machines that acted like living things. The droids of Star Wars universe are famed for the likeability and pluck. However, there is still the specter that some of those
Today we bring you the DDL blog version of the “duck test.” The “duck test” goes like this – if it walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. When you see a duck swimming in a pond, you don’t normally say: “hey, look
t’s cold in New Jersey now. At the time this post hits the blog, it will be about 20 degrees, real feel 15 degrees in most of New Jersey. That’s too cold for this blogger. That’s an extra-large cup of coffee for the ride to work. That’s two-layers of clothing to walk the dog. That’s
Today’s guest post is by Reed Smith‘s Jenn Eppensteiner. In it she discusses a recurring theme on the Blog – claimed product “defects” arising from nothing more than the failure of an implanted medical device. Case after case has recognized that the human body is a hostile environment for implants, surrounded by the
We had been waiting for the Utah Supreme Court’s decision in Burningham v. Wright Medical for some time. As we pointed out in a blogpost when Burningham was first certified by the district court (Utah is one of the few courts allowing district court certification), over a year ago, “[p]ractically no court has . .
This post is from the non-Reed Smith side of the blog.
It’s not a long decision – but there’s still a lot to it. Maybe that’s because there wasn’t a lot to plaintiff’s complaint. Regardless, Sharp v. St. Jude Medical, S.C., Inc., 2019 WL 3821895 (N.D.GA Aug. 14, 2019) makes some key defense rulings.
We’ve explained at length why Medtronic, Inc. v. Lohr, 518 U.S. 470 (1996), is an anachronism with respect to preemption, given the complete overhaul that Congress gave to §510(k). Still, strange things happen when preemption meets product liability, and there seems to be a conspiracy of silence among judges with respect to current FDA
It was a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year for Tucker Ellis’ Dustin Rawlin and his breast implant defense team – and they were considerate enough to share it with us.
Wait a minute, you might be saying, breast implant litigation? Isn’t that passé? I n a sense, we’d agree with you. This
We’ve always hated the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Stengel v. Medtronic Inc., 704 F.3d 1224 (9th Cir. 2013) (applying Arizona law), holding that allegations of failure to provide adverse event reports (“AERs”) to the FDA created a viable, and unpreempted, state law claim. Now our #2 worst case of 2013 is effectively gone. Kaput.
Did you know that October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month? Neither did we, until we started poking around the FDA’s recent press release announcing that it intends to update its guidance on medical device cybersecurity within the next few weeks. We also learned that National Cybersecurity Awareness Month has been observed each October since its