We are back from a weeklong vacation in Greece, with time split between Athens and a lovely, tiny, lightly-touristed island called Symi. We offer these observations:
A couple of times in recent weeks we have discussed pelvic mesh cases where a central issue was whether the cases were time-barred by a statute of limitations or repose. (See here and here.) There is a reason why this issue crops up persistently. The pelvic mesh litigation started off as a mass tort
Typically, medical malpractice cases are one-offs. A plaintiff may sue her doctor and/or hospital for failing to diagnose a condition or treating it in a suboptimal way. They tend to be highly fact-dependent even if the general subject, like post-operative infection, comes up fairly often within the world of med mal cases. In individual cases,
Today we bring you the DDL blog version of the “duck test.” The “duck test” goes like this – if it walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. When you see a duck swimming in a pond, you don’t normally say: “hey, look
We don’t often write about statutes of limitations because the cases tend to be fact bound and not all that illuminating on larger points of law and/or practice. However, a case in California struck a chord with us recently because it highlights a point that we think every litigator should understand: Tolling agreements should not
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 long ago we published, as a guest post, a 50-state survey of state tolling statutes that governed whether, and under what circumstances, actions dismissed on a non-merits basis could be refiled notwithstanding the running of the applicable statute of limitations in the interim.
Bexis had never really thought much about these kinds of statutes
We thought we understood statutes of limitations and choice-of-law rules in New Jersey. Until yesterday. That was when we read the New Jersey Supreme Court’s opinion in McCarrell v. Hoffmann-La Roche, Inc., No. 076524, 2017 WL 344449 (N.J. Jan. 24, 2017), which unhinged that state’s statute of limitations and choice-of-law jurisprudence from its own precedent and placed statutes of limitations in a special class without much explanation. And the court did all of this for the stated purpose of preserving plaintiffs’ claims and not “discriminating” against an out-of-state plaintiff’s ability to sue a New Jersey company in New Jersey, after the suit would be barred in the plaintiff’s home state.
How did we get here? Well, this is a New Jersey Accutane case, which tells you that it was contentious, as most things seem to be in that multi-county proceeding. Other than that, the facts in McCarrell are fairly typical—an out-of-state plaintiff (in this case a fellow from Alabama) who was prescribed a drug in his home state, used the drug in his home state, experienced alleged complications in his home state, and received medical treatment in his home state sued the drug’s manufacturer where the company is incorporated—in this case, New Jersey. McCarrell, at *3.
The rub in McCarrell was that the plaintiff’s claim was time barred under Alabama’s statute of limitations, but not under New Jersey’s statute of limitations, which includes a discovery rule. The choice of law therefore determined the outcome, which led the parties to contest the issue hotly in the trial court, the intermediate appellate court, and eventually the New Jersey Supreme Court.
Each court applied different rules, which is why this case is so interesting and why the Supreme Court’s opinion is so odd. We have long understood that the choice of forum does not determine the applicable substantive law. Sure, the forum’s procedural law applies, but the substantive law is determined by applying the forum state’s choice-of-law rules.
Continue Reading New Jersey Supreme Court Turns Back The Clock on Statute of Limitations