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If we had forgotten that there continue to be abundant U.S. cases of COVID-19, then there was plenty around us to remind us.  Public mask usage seems to have increased.  We heard how the “tripledemic” of viruses had made hospital beds scarce.  We have had colleagues out of commission instead of completing our assignments.  The

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We’re happy to report on a couple of favorable decisions involving some of the COVID-19-related issues that the Blog has been covering.  We have one each on ivermectin injunctions, Shoemaker v. UPMC, ___ A.3d ___, 2022 WL 4372772 (Pa. Super. Sept. 22, 2022), and vaccine mandates, Children’s Health Defense, Inc. v. Rutgers, 2022 WL 4377515 (D.N.J. Sept. 22, 2022).Continue Reading Two Recent COVID-19 Wins

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This post is from the non-Dechert side of the blog.

After more than a month away at trial, we probably should not have picked a case that hit so close to home, so to speak.  Spear v. Atrium Medical Corp., — F. Supp. 3d –, 2022 WL 3357485 (E.D. Pa. Aug. 12, 2022), is

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We have posted twice before about decisions that reject duty-to-train claims under the rubric of “educational malpractice.”  Now Pennsylvania has joined the party.  Grady v. Aero-Tech Services, Inc., 2022 WL 683720 (Pa. Super. March 8, 2022), an unpublished, but citable, decision of Pennsylvania’s major intermediate appellate court, applied Pennsylvania’s prior precedents that reject educational

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Bostic v. Ethicon, Inc., 2022 WL 952129 (E.D. Pa. March 29, 2022), is a Pennsylvania mesh case raising a host of familiar issues in a motion to dismiss context. The complaint is of the typically overpleaded (14-count) variety. Dickens was not really paid by the word, but plaintiff lawyers seem to think they might

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This post is from the non-Reed Smith side of the blog.

A lawyer is a person who writes a 10,000-word document and calls it a “brief.”— Franz Kafka

Our profession often gets criticized for purposeful confusion via legalese, fine print, or just plain old-fashioned verbosity.  We cannot deny that the loquacious and the prolific

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Today’s case isn’t drug/device, but it’s something our defense-oriented readers should know about.  At the tail end of 2021, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court laid this rotten egg:  Commonwealth v. Monsanto Co., ___ A.3d ___, 2021 WL 6139209 (Pa. Cmwlth. Dec. 30, 2021) (“CvM”).  The Commonwealth Court is a unique Pennsylvania judicial body,

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We report, with excitement and apprehension, that we have tickets to see Hugh Jackman as Harold Hill in The Music Man next month on Broadway.  The Drug and Device Law Dowager Countess blushes and giggles at the mention of Jackman, and the outing seemed a worthy one, not without apparent urgency given time’s ravages (the

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In law as in real estate, “location, location, location.” Where a case is filed is often outcome-determinative. Jury pools and jurisprudence vary from one jurisdiction to the next. In some states, any complaint written on paper is sufficient; in others, a plaintiff must actually plead facts to avoid dismissal. Similarly, juries in some places routinely