Although pasthistory demonstrates the increasing futility of class action certification in pharmaceutical/medical device product liability litigation, the other side still plugs away, most likely for reasons we’ve discussed here.

The latest denial of class certification came in Solo v. Bausch & Lomb, Inc., slip op., where the plaintiffs sought recovery of purported economic losses from having to throw away allegedly defective (more…)

The calm of Summer has ended, and that means we’ll once again start trotting around the country to give talks. Here’s the current line-up for the next three months:

October 2: The two of us will speak to the editors of the American Bar Association’s many websites about effective blogging and drawing traffic to a site.

(Pssst: Pick a niche. Keep fresh content flowing. Only be pompous occasionally.

That’s it! Now they (more…)

We received a copy of Ford Motor Co. v. Reese, ___ S.E.2d ___, 2009 WL 2951299 (Ga. App. Sept 16, 2009) (slip opinion), from Charles Beans over at Goodman McGuffey the other day.

But that’s not a drug or device case.

No it isn’t. But the issue raised in Reese, whether there’s a common-law duty to recall a product that’s being legally sold, is a question that can – and (more…)

Last week we came through for our readers with a $200 discount to ACI’s Drug/Medical Device Conference.

This week, we’ve gotten Law Journal Press, the publisher of Bexis’ book – officially Beck & Vale, “Drug & Medical Device Product Liability Deskbook,” (LJP 2004) – to offer it to blog readers at a 40% discount. That’s a more than a $100 savings from its ordinary price of $259.

If you like heavily-cited posts like the Limits (more…)

We don’t typically re-publish here accusations that are unhelpful to the pharmaceutical industry.

But we figure once something has appeared on the front page of the business section of The New York Times, our blog has little power to add or detract.

So defense lawyers interested in accusations of ghostwriting of articles published in medical journals should click this link to “Medical Editors Push for Crackdown on Ghostwriting” (more…)

A couple of cases we’ve posted about recently started us thinking – a dangerous turn of events, we know. There was that Beaumont Hospital case involving allegations about delivery of an incorrect free sample of a device. If somebody – anybody – at the hospital had simply looked at the thing, either when it was initially stored or later when it was taken back out for use, the error would have been readily apparent from the labeling, (more…)

Yesterday we were pleased to bring you news that the Indiana Supreme Court reversed a case we had previously criticized on precisely the grounds that we had raised.

Perhaps lighting will strike twice. Earlier this year, we criticized a federal district court decision predicting that Delaware would adopt an independent medical monitoring cause of action despite contrary-tending, if not dispositive, law from the Delawere Supreme Court, and (more…)

From where we sit, today’s post goes 0 for 2:

First, the case involves a lawsuit between health care providers and a medical device company. We don’t like to hear about those cases, because device companies don’t want to fight with anyone, let alone with health care providers, who are often the companies’ customers.

Second, the device company loses.

Ouch! We just hate that.

But the case (more…)

Bexis just got back from his Wyoming vacation, hiking in mountains where even his Blackberry couldn’t disturb him, and sure enough, the world didn’t grind to a halt in his absence. That’s fortunate, because if it had there wouldn’t be any material for this post. Bexis found a couple of interesting things in his in box on his return.

Perez v. Nidek

The first of these was Perez v. Nidek Co. (more…)

The American Conference Institute is again sponsoring its annual Drug and Medical Device Conference in New York City in December.

This year’s conference will be held from December 8 to 10 at the Millennium Broadway Hotel.

Here’s a link to the conference website, which in turn links to the conference brochure.

ACI is offering readers of this blog a $200 discount off the conference price. Mention the “Drug and Device (more…)