The interesting fact pattern that gives rise to the problem in this case is what are the duties of a generic drug manufacturer if, after a drug’s initial federal approval (and approval (and then mandated use) of a specific warning label), new information comes to light about potentially harmful side effects?  Can a claim be brought against the manufacturer under state law for failure to warn? Gloria Mensing took a medicine, MCP, a gene… Continue reading →

…s of the drug, an antibiotic. Levaquin included a warning but sometime after Schedin’s incident, the warning was changed and made more prominent (made into a “black box” warning in 2008).  Subsequent warning label changes would be a classic “subsequent remedial measure” inadmissible at trial if it were not for the fact that the label change was mandated by the FDA, U.S. District Court Judge John R. Tunheim has held. … Continue reading →

[UPDATE #2:  Mag. Judge Arthur J. Boylan's $100,000 spoliation sanction against Southern Graphic Systems upheld by U.S. District Court Judge John R. Tunheim.] [UPDATE:  Updating this drama that unfolded in June, see linked brief: the Plaintiff’s objections to Judge Boylan’s sanction (arguing that it did not go far enough and unfairly faulted plaintiff’s tactics in the litigation as a basis for not delivering the death-blow of default judgment on… Continue reading →

[UPDATE:  In this lawsuit, defendant settled, but failed to pay up (and failed to pay its attorneys).  Questions to be decided:  how to compel the defendant to make good on the settlement agreement?  Are Minnesota litigators stuck defending a client who appears unable to pay?  This week, U.S. Mag. Judge Arthur J. Boylan (D. Minn.) devised a plan to get defendants to settle up and to get the lawyers off the hook.] There is a broad societal consen… Continue reading →

…rm or illness? As a first line of defense, pharmaceuticals and device manufacturers seek protection under federal regulation but there are ways for such manufacturers to game that system (by promoting, for example, “off label” uses or, theoretically, by duping federal regulators by other means (i.e., concealing or distorting data as to efficacy or side effects)). So the FDA may afford medical companies some protection, but that protec… Continue reading →

…n that would have negatively affected levofloxacin sales in both Europe and the United States.  Over the past decade, there appears to have been increased concern about these medications and the communication of risk on their labels.  The label warnings have been increasingly emphatic.  Plaintiffs’ theories seem to be, in a nutshell, that the drug companies knew of the medicine’s risks and have steadfastly tried to understate or de-em… Continue reading →

Were you sold a flare root injection regimen for a treasured oak or multiple oaks on your property to prevent oak wilt disease, only to have your tree die from oak wilt notwithstanding the hundreds of dollars (or more) spent on flare root injection? One label on branded propiconazole says,  “Preventive application is more effective than therapeutic treatment.”  Some companies that “administer” the flare root injections d… Continue reading →

…njection regimen for a treasured oak or multiple oaks on your property to prevent oak wilt disease, only to have your tree die from oak wilt notwithstanding the hundreds of dollars (or more) spent on flare root injection? One label on branded propiconazole says,  “Preventive application is more effective than therapeutic treatment.”  Some companies that “administer” the flare root injections do so with a guaranty or warran… Continue reading →

…rt will strike the footnotes in their objection and decline to consider them. “ ] The earlier post is after the jump.   The linked letter is the second of three letters sent in a single day in a single case to U.S. Mag. Judge Arthur Boylan (D. Minn.) in an obviously hotly contested lawsuit between two companies (where employees of one went to work at the other). Plaintiff Cenveo brought a motion to amend its complaint to add a claim for punitive … Continue reading →

…ion when plaintiffs sought to hold the company liable for its conduct in regard to preservation of information related to a 2004 RIF.  On March 14, U.S. District Court Chief Judge Michael J. Davis (D. Minn.) upheld Mag. Judge Arthur J. Boylan’s earlier decision in favor of Seagate. … Continue reading →