We hope we have some 1980s cartoon fans out there who will remember that G.I. Joe ended each of his cartoons with a PSA – “Now you know. And knowing is half the battle . . .” The PSA was usually about something dangerous kids did unintentionally—like running out into traffic. The idea was
The district court’s order applying Michigan law and dismissing one plaintiff’s complaint in the Tapezza MDL may be the last of a dying breed. The court faithfully enforced Michigan’s statute providing a presumption of non-defectiveness for FDA approved drugs and dismissed the plaintiffs’ case. But alas, Michigan repealed that law effective February 13, 2024, thus
On its face, Osos v. Nuvasive, Inc., 2024 WL 3585092 (E.D. Mich. July 30, 2024), is a fairly routine medical implant product liability lawsuit, involving allegations of metallosis that have already been around the block quite a few times in hip implant cases. Osos involves a somewhat different device, but the legal principles are no different.
But Osos involves Michigan law, and Michigan (as we first mentioned at the end of last year, and discussed more thoroughly here) only recently repealed a longstanding conclusive presumption of non-defectiveness based on FDA drug approvals. That presumption, which “functionally foreclosed” most product liability claims against, such products, White v. SmithKline Beecham Corp., 538 F. Supp.2d 1023, 1029 (W.D. Mich. 2008), undoubtedly reduced litigation by Michigan plaintiffs. See Our “Michigan Diaspora” post. The repeal will equally undoubtedly cause Michigan prescription medical product litigation to rebound.Continue Reading Possible Learned Intermediary Showdown in Michigan
Today’s guest post is by Sherry Knutson and Brenda Sweet of Tucker Ellis, and concerns the recently passed legislative repeal of a Michigan statute that, for several decades had effectively immunized prescription drugs from ordinary product liability actions under Michigan law. For background, here’s a prior blogpost that focused on the now-repealed statute. As
Today’s decision comes from In re: Proton Pump Inhibitor Products Liability Litigation—an MDL pending in New Jersey. But the decision is all about the 197 Michigan plaintiffs in the MDL. The plaintiffs who either live in Michigan, got their prescription in Michigan, were diagnosed with their injury in Michigan, and/or received treatment for their
We have promised ourselves that we will stream this week’s “This Is Us” episode when we finish this blog post. We love this series beyond reason, and we dread its imminent demise, notwithstanding the title’s grammatical transgression. (We generally condition any sort of allegiance on correct use of predicate nominatives.) We are struck, over and
Some of our posts about challenges to Covid-19 vaccines or treatments might have been a bit … strident. It is hard to be otherwise when the cases involve such high stakes and so little merit.
But this time we will try to take our cue from the court in Frey v. Trinity Health-Michigan, 2021
We have been following the issue of potential product liability for software, including in connection with medical devices, for a while. Much of our attention, predictably, has been on FDA regulation of device software, including issues related to resistance to hacking to obtain information or cause harm. Like here, here, here, and
There was once a musician from Michigan who rapped that “the FCC won’t let me be.” This was in the context of claiming that his songs were only permitted to be played over this thing called radio with edits that he apparently found unacceptable. In Cyr v. Ford Motor Co., No. 345751, 2019 WL
On our office bulletin board, we keep a post-it listing the states we have not yet visited. We are down to ten, and we expected to cross Oregon off after a deposition last week. But our deponent moved from Bend, Oregon to St. George, Utah. We’ve been to Utah lots of times, and were annoyed