2026 has been a festive year, marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, which was adopted in our home town of Philadelphia. But did you know that the first formal call by any colony for independence from perfidious Albion was the Halifax Resolves, which was issued on April 12, 1776 in North Carolina?
Legal problems are often multi-faceted. Turned one way, the problem looks like one issue. Turn it around, and a different issue glimmers in your eye.
For example, in Saulsby v. Amphastar Pharm., Inc., __ S.E.2d ___, 2025 N.C. App. LEXIS 420, 2025 WL 1812450 (N.C. App. July 2, 2025), the North Carolina Court of
In our legal world, Lone Pine is not a small California town near the majestic Mt. Whitney and the sobering Manzanar National Historic Site. It is an order directing plaintiffs to come forward with some evidence that they took, or were exposed to, the product they are suing over, and some evidence about their
The recent case of Happel v. Guilford County Bd. of Educ., 2025 N.C. LEXIS 191, 2025 WL 879618 (N.C. March 21, 2005), will probably provoke a political debate, but that is not why your friendly neighborhood DDL blog has it up for discussion today. In Happel, the North Carolina Supreme Court created an
We don’t get blood shield statute cases very often, but here is one involving a human tissue-based spinal bone graft. In Sherrill v. Spinalgraft Technologies, LLC, et al., 2024 WL 1979452 (W.D.N.C May 3, 2024), the plaintiff had undergone spinal surgery. That surgery included the use of processed bone graft material, which is “made
Last year Bexis was lead author on a law review article in the Food and Drug Law Journal titled Federal Preemption and the Post-Dobbs Reproductive Freedom Frontier. The article expands on themes previously raised in this blog, including here, here and here. It discusses the application of federal preemption under the Food Drug and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) to state-law medication abortion restrictions after Dobbs. The article recognized that, following Dobbs, it was inevitable that FDCA preemption would become embroiled in the abortion controversy. That prediction was accurate. Today’s decision addresses the impact of preemption on a North Carolina law that imposed significant restrictions on an FDA approved medication taken to terminate a pregnancy.
Continue Reading North Carolina and Post-Dobbs Regulation of Mifepristone
When we last reported on Beaver v. Pfizer, the plaintiff’s complaint alleging that the FDA “suggested” that the defendant’s drug be removed from the market had been dismissed because it was a preempted “stop selling” claim. In any event, as we also pointed out, the plaintiff did not claim the condition that had purportedly
A plaintiff lawyer recently filed a case against our client in North Carolina. He has made a settlement demand that any rational observer would regard as ambitious to the point of outrageous. Despite that crazy number, we are on fairly friendly terms with the plaintiff lawyer. We jawbone at each other in a generally good
We have made no secret of our long-held views that “failure to withdraw” or “stop selling” theories of liability for FDA-authorized medical products are unwarranted perversions of state design defect law and preempted anyway. When we say long-held, we mean it, because we had a few of the first cases where this theory was put
Last year we wrote a post about Froman v. Coopersurgical, Inc., 2022 US Dist LEXIS 120725, *2-3 (N.D.AL Jul. 8, 2022), calling it trifecta Tuesday because the case was dismissed on the grounds of personal jurisdiction, pleadings deficiencies, and preemption. Today’s case involves the same product, the same defendants, and the same conclusions on