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We have no inclination to mess with Texas.  Heck, a state ornery enough to secede from two different countries in order to preserve slavery isn’t likely to care, anyway.  So if Texas wants to run its own power grid, not connect to the rest of us, and freeze in the dark when that system fails, we’re certainly not going to stand in the way.  Conversely, when Texas emphatically adopted the learned intermediary rule in Centocor, Inc. v. Hamilton, 372 S.W.3d 140 (Tex. 2012), we hailed it as the best decision of 2012.

But when Texas decides to mess with the rest of us….  Well, that’s different.

So we do have comments on the bizarre complaint that the Texas attorney general recently filed over COVID-19.  The complaint, brought under the Texas consumer protection statute, sued a major manufacturer of COVID-19 vaccine that was used to control the recent pandemic.  That Complaint alleges various antivax conspiracy theories concerning COVID-19 vaccines, the FDA, emergency use authorizations, and the media that have circulated since these vaccines first became available.  The Texas Complaint also claims that, in various ways, the vaccine manufacturer violated certain mandatory FDCA provisions and FDA regulations (¶22), did not follow voluntary FDA guidance (¶¶25-31), supposedly committed fraud on the FDA by submitting misleading data (¶¶47, 117, 120-21), and mostly that it purportedly misled the public and/or the press (¶¶50, 55-91, 154-55, 157-59, 161-63, 165-66, 168-69).Continue Reading A Texas Mess

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Lawyers and wannabe lawyers like to use Latin words and phrases without always understanding their original meaning.  English, a Germanic language according to the family tree, is peppered with words that are derived from Latin.  Being the conglomeration that it is, English includes some words—egregious comes to mind—that now mean the opposite of their Latin

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Today’s message is a reminder that specific personal jurisdiction is just that – both specific and personal.  That means plaintiffs can’t group plead their way around personal jurisdiction lumping parents and subsidiaries together.  Plaintiffs must identify each defendant’s individual role in causing the alleged harm.  If plaintiffs seek to impute the jurisdictional contacts of one

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Back in the antediluvian era of the Bone Screw Litigation some 25 years ago, Bexis was responsible for crafting (and sometimes outright inventing, see fraud on the FDA) defenses for that then-unusual medical device-related mass tort.  One of the first post-MDL-remand Bone Screw cases involved a Louisiana statute, La. Stat. Rev. §9:2800.56, requiring that, for a product to be “unreasonably dangerous in design,” the plaintiff must establish that “[t]here existed an alternative design for the product that was capable of preventing the claimant’s damage” based on the statute’s risk/utility test.Continue Reading A Primer on Alternative Design

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As much as we liked those parts of In re DePuy Orthopaedics, Inc., Pinnacle Hip Implant Products Liability Litigation, 888 F.3d 753 (5th Cir. 2018) (applying Texas law), that overturned a half-billion dollar verdict caused by a combination of attorney misconduct and judicial lassitude, we also recognized the problematic effects of certain other Fifth Circuit rulings in that decision.  While the good parts of Pinnacle Hip were good enough to win that decision a spot in our 2018 top ten cases, that decision’s adverse aspects were bad enough that it also landed on our list of 2018’s worst ten decisions.  Specifically we observed:

The most serious error the court made was refusing to apply established Texas law that comment k precludes strict liability across the board.  Pinnacle Hip ignored – really ignored − a half dozen prior decisions (including one of its own) on this issue.  Even if there wasn’t any precedent (which there was), expanding state-law liability where the state courts have not is not the job of a federal court sitting in diversity.

Continue Reading Comment K, Presumptions, and Medical Device Design Defects Under Texas Law

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One of the stock P-side responses, in the post-Bauman personal jurisdiction environment, to a jurisdictionally-based motion to dismiss is to seek “jurisdictional discovery” – the more onerous the better – in an attempt both to slow the often-inevitable dismissal and also to drive up the nuisance value of the case.  That’s the main reason that on our personal jurisdiction cheat sheet we note when jurisdictional discovery is denied.Continue Reading Jurisdictional Discovery Is Not Bigger in Texas

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

Defendants in Pizzitola v. Ethicon, Inc., filed motions to exclude two of plaintiff’s experts and both decisions (two orders issued) heavily favored the defense, rejecting recurrent design defect arguments by plaintiffs.

The product at issue is synthetic pelvic mesh.  Plaintiff’s first challenged expert was a gynecologic surgeon.  While is area of practice may overlap with issues in the case, his report went well beyond both relevant issues and his area of expertise.  Namely, plaintiff’s expert wanted to opine that lots of things were alternative designs that in fact were not.  Starting with a different medical procedure altogether.  “It is not an alternative design of any product.  In fact, it is not a product at all.”  Pizzitola I, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 184352, *6 (S.D. Tex. Oct. 7, 2022).  Plaintiff argued the testimony was relevant to a risk/utility analysis but showing that a different medical procedure may be safer, “does not affect whether a product has utility and/or risks.”  Id. at *7.  The decision to perform a different medical procedure lies within the medical judgment of the treating surgeon and has no bearing on the design of the device at issue.  Id. Continue Reading Two Strikes Against Plaintiff’s Experts in Texas Pelvic Mesh Case