There is a well-worn saying in electrical engineering — if you want to break a circuit, you can cut the wire or trip the breaker. Plaintiffs in several consolidated spinal-cord stimulator cases recently tried something more creative — they attempted to rewire the entire regulatory grid by suing the FDA itself, hoping to knock out
Tennessee
Sixth Circuit Confirms That Rule 702 Is Too Steep A Hill To Climb For Materials Science Expert
This post is from the non-Butler Snow side of the blog.
In Hill v. Medical Device Business Services, Inc., No. 24-5797, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 17835, 2025 WL 1950300 (6th Cir. July 16, 2025), the Sixth Circuit affirmed an expert exclusion/Rule 702/Don’t Say Daubert decision in a case that we last wrote about…
Another Acetaminophen Step in the Right Direction
Last week we told you about two decisions in the In re Acetaminophen − ASD-ADHD Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 3043, that were improvements over last November’s debacle of a preemption decision. Today we report on a decision that makes it a trilogy. We are still reserving judgment, but with hope.
This MDL is…
Plaintiffs Cannot Turn Their Burden To Prove Causation Into Partial Summary Judgment
Duh. We apologize for the depth of our profundity, but there are some legal principles we think are really obvious. So obvious, in fact, that we might respond to question about these principles with this most dismissive of (clean) interjections. (We were somewhat surprised to learn from the interwebs that duh was supposedly first used…
Tennessee Trial Court Holds Claims Preempted Notwithstanding Alleged Off-Label Use Of A Medical Device
Today we discuss Sherrod v. Smith & Nephew, Inc., 2021 Tenn. Cir. LEXIS 74 (Tenn. Cir. Ct. 2021), a recent Tennessee trial court decision granting the defendant device manufacturer summary judgment on preemption grounds. Notwithstanding one quibble, there is much to like about the decision.
The plaintiff, who asserted a plethora of product-liability and…
Good and Bad in IVC Filter Decision out of the Middle District of Tennessee
We tend to favor a “glass half full” outlook. We are preternaturally sunshiny during our daily “how was your day” calls from the 86-year-old Drug and Device Law Dowager Countess. (We have not mentioned, for example, that our aging dog has begun sleeping most of the day and barking most of the night, resulting in…
Plaintiff Cannot Escape Prior Pleadings to Avoid Statute of Limitations
Wanke v. Invasix, Inc., 2021 WL 325923 (M.D. Tenn. Feb. 1, 2021) is an interesting and somewhat long story, so we’re just going to give it to you straight.
In June 2017, plaintiff underwent a medical procedure on her face in which defendant’s medical device was used. Her counsel entered into a tolling agreement…
Tennessee Statute of Repose Shuts Down Pelvic Mesh Case
On Christmas Eve we blogged about a pelvic mesh case that had the veritable “mixed bag” of rulings. A bad bit in that bag was the court’s ruling that the statute of limitations had not been triggered until a doctor performed a revision operation and told the plaintiff the operation was necessary to address issues…
You Can Lead a Plaintiff to Water
Sometimes discovery can feel like a four-letter word. Take your pick – hunt, seek, find, dump, onus, cost(ly). When we are talking about responding to interrogatories and document requests, we can add a few more – dull, drag, bore . . . In other words, it’s not the most exciting part of litigation. But the…