The Supreme Court limited a striking vulnerability for product manufacturers in Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court of California this summer when it ruled that out-of-state plaintiffs could not simply claim injuries that were similar to residents to support specific…
Yearly Archives: 2017
Lack of Substantiation Theories in False Advertising Cases—The Burden Lies on the Plaintiff
Often when we think of product liability we think of a product that doesn’t function as intended and causes some sort of damage resulting in warning, design and/or manufacturing defect claims. However, another important aspect is advertising. The purpose of…
Proposed Legislation to Relax Rules on Medical Device Reporting Passes U.S. House
On July 13, 2017, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that would triple the amount of time in which medical device manufacturers are required to report certain malfunctions of some products to the Food and Drug Administration. Companies…
Supreme Court Solidifies Specific Jurisdiction Analysis To Dismiss Product Claims Filed Against Non-Resident Defendant, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.
Product manufacturers routinely hauled into court in far away, inconvenient jurisdictions can breathe a little easier with the Supreme Court’s decision this week in Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court of California. A group of plaintiffs, most of whom were…
SCOTUS Decisions May Provide A Roadmap to Enforcing Arbitration Clauses Included In Product Packaging
It is open opinion season at the U.S. Supreme Court, and two recent decisions pertaining to the enforceability of arbitration clauses provide guidance to manufacturers looking to bind consumers through the use of product packaging. In Kindred Nursing Centers Limited…
Lack of Specificity May Kill Parallel State Law Product Claims, But Not Fraud Claim
A Michigan district court judge determined last week that product liability claims against an FDA approved medical device manufacturer were preempted by federal law, but allowed the plaintiff’s claim of fraud against the manufacturer, Medtronic, Inc., to proceed at the…
The Expert Report: Key Considerations
Product liability cases often present challenging and complex issues which require the use of experts. If you are litigating in federal court, any expert you designate will be required to provide a written report[1]. The same, however, may not be…
Punitive Damages and an Essential Jury Instruction
In one of our recent posts we touched on punitive damages in the context of one of the Pinnacle Hip bellwether trials. In this post, we address another interesting aspect of punitive damages: whether they can be used to punish…
Lessons Emerging from Pinnacle Hip Bellwether Trials
In a staggering verdict, a Texas jury recently awarded over $1 billion against Johnson & Johnson (“J&J”) and its subsidiary DePuy Orthopaedics Inc. (“DePuy”) (collectively referred to as “Defendants”) to six California plaintiffs who claimed the companies’ Pinnacle hip system’s…
Tagged with: Bellwether, DePuy, hip implant, Johnson & Johnson, metal-on-metal hip implant
Posted in Agreements, Recalls
Posted in Agreements, Recalls
