Minnesota Litigator is delighted to announce its newest Guest Poster: Sara Peterson.  Sara is a Minnesota lawyer with eleven years of experience on environmental and regulatory matters in a range of litigation, administrative and transactional contexts.  Following ten years with a large Minneapolis firm, Sara founded Parkway Law LLC in April 2011.  She continues to specialize in environmental matters, particularly those related to waste, water, … 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 →

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 →

…rred.   This position survived a motion to dismiss before Hennepin County District Court Judge Deborah Hedlund, but it did not survive the Minnesota Court of Appeals (Peterson, Lansing, Stauber, in a decision written by Judge Peterson).  (Jacobs Engineering did not fare so well, however, in defending against the Minnesota’s claim against it for indemnification, also decided this week by the Minnesota Court of Appeals.) … 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 →

…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 →

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 →

…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 →

…w Ulm on behalf of alleged abuse victims.  And the Court went on to rule that no such obligation had been alleged, affirming summary judgment in favor of the Diocese. The Minnesota Court of Appeals (Judges Larkin, Wright, and Peterson, in an opinion by Larkin) refused to go as far as the Wisconsin Supreme Court in a similar case. While clearly sympathetic to plaintiffs’ claims, the Court concluded that any remedy the plaintiffs might have w… Continue reading →

Update (5/26/2011):  ADT seems one step closer to having a Minnesota jury trial and the late production of documents, referenced below, may complicate its defense considerably (see pages 16-20 of this week’s order). Update (5/3/2011):  U.S. District Court Judge John R. Tunheim (D. Minn.) heard argument on a number of motions on May 2.  Amanda Cialkowski argued on behalf of ADT.   Paul Peterson and William Harper argued on behalf of Swenson/Hawk… Continue reading →

As reported in the Winona Daily News over the weekend, a jury in the Hennepin County District Court courtroom of Judge Bruce Peterson awarded a plaintiff represented by Robert J. Hajek $410,000 in compensatory damages, $1 million in punitive damages, against Donald Dean Budd, a former pastor at Winona’s McKinley United Methodist Church.  Budd was represented by Timothy Waldeck. Plaintiff had gone to her pastor to navigate the challenges of hard … Continue reading →

Contributor Sara Peterson writes in: AT&T Mobile filed a notice of appeal this week with the Minnesota Court of Appeals in the dispute over their proposed 450-foot cell tower that would be visible from portions of the BWCA.  AT&T attorneys apparently plan to argue that the Minnesota Environmental Rights Act (MERA) does not preserve views from within the wilderness area to points outside, and may not apply to scenic and esthetic resources… Continue reading →