Today’s guest post is by Kevin Hara, of Reed Smith, who is pinch-hitting for Steve Boranian. His post today discusses the Texas Supreme Court’s procedural reversal of a lower court’s refusal to hear an interlocutory appeal concerning application of a Texas distributor immunity statute arising in the context of an FDA-regulated drug. The
We’ve wondered if the widespread use of generative AI was going to produce an increase in the filing of pro se complaints and a marked change in their content. While the results are preliminary, at least one study shows a significant increase in pro se filings following the general availability of AI tools. And our own anecdotal experience suggests that, with the benefit of AI, pro se filings are moving from handwritten one-pagers to lengthy and more sophisticated complaints.
If AI is helping pro se plaintiffs prepare more sophisticated pleadings, we would hope that courts would become less deferential. After all, if generative AI helps pro se litigants bring their claims on a more level playing field, and if they’re bombarding courts with complaints, shouldn’t we see an end to the type of judicial indulgence in favor of pro se plaintiffs that leads to bizarrely pro plaintiff results? While we will continue to hold out hope, today’s case is an example of a court giving a pro se plaintiff the benefit of the doubt and, unfortunately, potentially expanding Texas product liability law into enterprise software.
Continue Reading Pro Se Blues in Texas
Who would’ve thought that Texas, of all states, would become a nannyocracy? The Lone Star State typically positions itself as the home of rough and ready folks who can take care of themselves. Think Jim Bowie, Willie Nelson, or Bob Lilly, not Mr. Rogers, Mary Poppins, or Nanny McPhee. Texans don’t need the government telling
As many of the Blog’s authors and readers wake up today, they will be in New York for the ACI Drug and Medical Device Litigation Conference. Clearly, the choice of venue matters when it comes to a conference. It also matters to plaintiff lawyers and the medical product manufacturers that they sue. The infamous
An appellate court in Texas filed an opinion last week that very helpfully defines and applies the standard for specific personal jurisdiction under a factual scenario that is extremely common in our line of work—a plaintiff trying to sue a foreign company that sells products (medical devices) in the U.S. through a U.S.-based affiliate. The
Bexis knows that cases like Daughtry v. Silver Fern Chemical, Inc., 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 11431, 2025 WL 1364806 (5th Cir. May 12, 2025), hit our sweet spot. It is a civil case, but it also emits a whiff of criminal law. It purports to be, among other things, a product liability case, but it turns
A month or so ago, we castigated some extremely poorly reasoned expert exclusion decisions in the Bulox v. Coopersurgical litigation. The end results weren’t horrible (p-side motions were denied), but th0se Rule 702 opinions completely ignored the changes wrought by the 2023 amendments to that Rule. It was so striking that we went on PACER to see whether defense counsel was to blame for any of that – they weren’t.
Well, today we’re cheering the latest decision(s) in the same litigation. Bulox v. Coopersurgical, Inc., 2025 U.S. Dist. Lexis 56370 (Mag. S.D. Tex. March 6, 2005) (“Bulox I”), adopted, 2025 U.S. Dist. Lexis 54755 (S.D. Tex. March 25, 2025) (“Bulox II”), is as good a PMA medical device preemption decision as a defendant has a right to expect. This Bulox decision should go a long way towards defeating the other side’s latest campaign to deprive women of contraceptive choice.
Continue Reading Clip, Clip Hooray
Did it seem to you in law school that sometimes the hardest part of reading cases was not deciphering some obscure legal principle — say, the difference between larceny by trick and taking under false pretenses, or the Rule in Shelley’s Case, or pretty much anything in Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code —
Little more than a year ago, in our “Texas Mess” post, we critiqued what we called a “bizarre complaint” recently filed by the Texas attorney general (“TAG”) against a major COVID-19 vaccine manufacturer. We described that complaint as a mélange of “various antivax conspiracy theories concerning COVID-19 vaccines, the FDA, emergency
Bespoke makes us think of tailoring, which makes us think of London’s Savile Row, which makes us think of Annie’s You’re Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile (“who cares what they’re wearing on Main Street or Savile Row”). Which as it turns out is perfect for today’s case about a plaintiff who wanted the court