The actual words written by Shakespeare and spoken by Antonio in The Tempest are “Whereof what’s past is prologue.” Antonio is trying to convince Sebastian to murder his father the king and take the crown for himself. When Shakespeare wrote these words, he intended Antonio to convey to Sebastian that everything that had happened in
One size does not in fact fit all. Cookie cutters are great for ensuring uniformity. The type of uniformity you want on a beautiful dessert tray. Uniform size, shape, and color appeal to the eye. It’s precise. It’s inviting. And while the term “mass tort” may conjure up the image of complaint after complaint stamped
Anytime we start to write a post about a decision from New York, our heads start swimming in music lyrics. Rose trees never grow in New York City… Concrete jungle where dreams are made of… Living just enough for the city… Soon you will be on Sugar Hill in Harlem… I don’t care if it’s
With new grass on the field, the 2019 baseball season is underway and optimism springs eternal. Here in Philadelphia, the Phillies have actually around the top of the NL east for the first time since, umm…., last year actually. But this year, having added possibly the best player and best catcher in the league,
We’ve blogged a number of times about the Dormant Commerce Clause (“DCC”) as an additional basis for bolstering both preemption and Due Process arguments. Here’s another prescription drug-based example.
The state of New York decided to impose a special tax on opioid manufacturers to finance various responses to the so-called “opioid epidemic.” The tax came
Our last post talked about carbohydrate-rich Thanksgiving food. Today, we are talking about a putative class action on the labeling of certain diet foods, particularly in regard to “net carbs” and sugar alcohols. This was not planned. Colella v. Atkins Nutritionals, Inc., No. 17-cv-5867 (KAM), 2018 WL 6437082 (E.D.N.Y. Dec. 7, 2018), on the
We maintain a number of “scorecards” on legal issues where we judge the defense advantage is sufficiently great that including all cases, even if adverse, does not violate our injunction against doing the other side’s research for them. Three of the scorecards – PMA preemption, generic preemption, and innovator liability, pretty much update
Not terribly long ago, we had a series of posts—too many to link—that recounted court decisions rejecting efforts to impose liability on a generic manufacturer for the standard design and labeling claims and/or on an NDA holder for injuries allegedly caused by the use of the generic version of its drug. When the conjunctive
There was a time when we paid quite a bit of attention to the circumstances under which a participant in a clinical trial could impose liability on the sponsor of the clinical trial. We even tried a case to a defense verdict for the sponsor of a clinical trial in a case where the plaintiff
If a court acknowledges that no state or federal appellate courts in the jurisdiction have addressed the question before it, we think at a minimum there also should be an acknowledgement of the Erie doctrine. Yet, in the case of Fogel v. Sorin Group USA, Inc., 2018 WL 4680022 (S.D.N.Y. Sep. 28, 2018) you