A postal worker picks up a leaking bottle of drain cleaner stuck on a conveyor belt and suffers severe chemical burns. The product was sold through an online marketplace and was made by a manufacturer that sells only bulk cases to hardware distributors. This wayward bottle was shipped in the US Mail illegally by someone
A recent order from the Northern District of Illinois shows just how far public entities will go in trying to spread blame for opioid use and abuse, and in Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners v. Publicis Health, LLC, the district court found that a group of school districts reached too far. No. 24
Every law student learns the same tidy hierarchy on day one of Torts. Negligence is harder to prove than strict liability, because strict liability does not require showing the defendant did anything wrong, only that the product itself was defective. And recklessness is harder still than negligence, reserved for conduct that goes well beyond a
The California Supreme Court handed down its long-awaited decision in Gilead Tenofovir Cases yesterday, and as we hoped, the Court held that a drug manufacturer owes no duty of care when deciding whether and when to develop an allegedly safer alternative drug to replace an admittedly non-defective product. The decision is a significant win for
We observed arguments last week in the California Supreme Court in Gilead Tenofovir Cases, and quality advocates on both sides put on a great performance. As we previewed last week, the case presents a question with potentially sweeping consequences for product liability law: Does a pharmaceutical manufacturer owe a duty of reasonable care
After nearly three years of litigation winding through California’s appellate courts, the closely watched Gilead Tenofovir Cases is finally set for oral argument before the California Supreme Court on Wednesday, May 6, 2026, at 9:00 a.m. in San Francisco. The case presents a question with potentially sweeping consequences for product liability law: Does a pharmaceutical
No, not that case. The appeal of the FIFRA preemption rulings in glyphosate litigation is still pending. This decision is Hencely v. Fluor Corp., No. 24-924, 2026 U.S. Lexis 1868 (U.S. Apr. 22, 2026), which involves the preemption of negligence claims against a military contractor in connection with a terrorist attack on the Bagram
For the decades that we have been handling drug and medical device product liability cases, it has been a given that we wanted to make it clear that our clients did not provide medical care or healthcare directly to patients. For one thing, unauthorized practice of medicine would be bad. Also, when dealing with prescription
Public policy favors scientific and medical research. So do we. While the theories of various claims asserted against sponsors of medical research—and the reasons for rejecting them—vary greatly, the underlying incentive to promote good research certainly plays a role in protecting those that sponsor and conduct medical research from virtually unlimited liability for alleged