It’s the most wonderful time of year, or at least Sirius channel 79 keeps telling us that. Too much food, too much drink, too much family, and not quite enough presents. Or, at least, not enough of the right presents. Or, maybe, lots of those veritable mixed bags. You know – a six pack of
Council for Responsible Nutrition v. James, 2025 WL 3165673 (2d Cir. Nov. 13, 2925), is a Second Circuit decision about a New York state restriction on the sale of certain dietary supplements to minors. This blog covers the case because the court’s decision includes a disturbing preemption holding. This particular blogger covers the case
Not too long ago, we tried to extrapolate from a doctoral thesis on quantum dots to lessons for litigation. That “[q]uantum dots are between one-billionth of a meter and one-hundred-millionth of a meter in size” emphasized that “appreciating the scope and scale of what is being discussed can be critical.” In the spate of litigation
The preemption case du jour is Gregory v. Boston Sci. Corp., 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 164801, 2025 WL 2452382 (E.D.N.Y. Aug. 25, 2025), in which the Eastern District of New York granted summary judgment on federal preemption grounds.
Every time we see a case that does that—upholds preemption on summary judgment—we wonder
Today’s decision, Croci v. Zoll Medical Corp., 2025 WL 2307728 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 11, 2025), is a straightforward, preemption-based 12(b)(6) dismissal of a complaint involving a Class III medical device. The case involves claims about a Life Vest, which is worn externally and monitors the wearer’s heart rate. The device is able to detect ventricular tachycardia and ventricular fibrillation, and it can deliver a therapeutic shock to restore the wearer’s heart rate to a normal rhythm. The complaint alleged that the decedent experienced problems with the Life Vest, and that a representative of the Life Vest’s manufacturer visited the decedent’s home to “desensitize the device.” Id. at *1. Shortly after the alleged visit from the representative, the decedent experienced a cardiac arrest and died.Continue Reading PMA Preemption in the Southern District of New York
Late last year we said that almost every legal conference these days has a session on artificial intelligence. It is de rigeur. That is also true with respect to litigation funding. It is a hot issue. Our Inn of Court (University of Pennsylvania) did a presentation on litigation funding that, despite the fact that
Medical device preemption should be straightforward. The statute could not be clearer. Federal regulation supplants state laws that would impose requirements that are different from or in addition to the federal requirements. But the law has evolved into a bit of a mess, with misreadings of certain approval/clearance pathways and inventions of exceptions, such as
We often say here that we try not to do the other side’s homework for them or give them ideas about new ways to sue our clients. When the Supreme Court takes a well-known statute and says, essentially, that it can now be applied in personal injury cases that also have economic damages, we do
The plaintiff in Kane v. Covidien LP, 2025 U.S. Dist. Lexis 25718 (E.D.N.Y. Feb. 12, 2025), lost the bulk of her case recently, on a motion to dismiss no less. In this case involving surgical staples, strict liability and negligence claims (which, in New York, are “functionally synonymous,” id. at *18) for design and
The Butler Snow contingent on the DDL blogging team had nothing to do with this post.
New York law is surprisingly good for defendants. Or maybe we’re jaded by bad experiences in other jurisdictions, and New York law manages to seem fair only by comparison. Certainly, we’d rather be in a courtroom in New York