Stephen McConnell

Firm/Organization: Reed Smith LLP

Latest Articles

Missouri Federal Court Finds No Specific Jurisdiction over Kansas Knee Implant

By Stephen McConnell on June 12, 2019

Missouri courts keep showing us surprisingly good things on the personal jurisdiction front. In Mitchell v. DePuy Orthopaedics, Inc., 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 92621 (W.D. Missouri June 3, 2019), the plaintiff twice had a knee replacement implant while she lived in Kansas, then sued in Missouri, claiming that, after she moved there, that is where she suffered injuries and where she sought treatment for her injuries. She alleged negligence, strict liability, breach of warranty, misrepresentation,…

Drug & Device Law

Protein Shake Preemption

By Stephen McConnell on June 5, 2019

Of all the products regulated by the FDA, drugs and medical devices receive the most erratic preemption protection. Thank you, Levine, Lohr, and gibberings about CBEs, clear evidence, and parallel claims. Perhaps it is bad form to accuse SCOTUS of incoherence, but we wouldn’t be the first. (Try reading the SCOTUS doctrinal wanderings through obscenity law or jury unanimity requirements and then try to convince yourself that the “least dangerous branch” is not really the…

Drug & Device Law

Dark Web Provider Escapes Wrongful Death Drug Case

By Stephen McConnell on May 29, 2019

This last week of May has been a big one in the James Bond universe. It includes the birthdays of Ian Fleming, who wrote the books, of Richard Maibaum, who wrote many of the screenplays, and of Clifton James, who played the comically exasperated southern Sheriff in the Live and Let Die and The Man with the Golden Gun films. This week is also the 50th anniversary celebration of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the…

Drug & Device Law

Law Review Article Critiques Local Government Public Nuisance Suits

By Stephen McConnell on May 22, 2019

Perhaps you recall how President Trump campaigned on behalf of “Big Luther” Strange in Alabama. Strange had been appointed by Alabama’s Governor to fill the Alabama United States Senate seat vacated by Jeff Sessions when Sessions became U.S Attorney General. Trump supported Strange’s effort to win election to the seat in his own right for the term to commence after the interim appointment expired. Big Luther is, indeed, big. At six feet, nine inches, he…

Drug & Device Law

W.D. Va. Rejects Fraudulent Joinder and Fraudulent Misjoinder Arguments; Remands Case

By Stephen McConnell on May 15, 2019

There are more bad fraudulent joinder decisions than good ones out there, and we typically do not like publicizing the other side’s wins. But occasionally an opinion is so weird that it merits a brief comment. Cardoza v. Med. Device Bus. Servs., 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 77506 (W.D.Va. May 8, 2019), is a bit weird. The plaintiff was a Virginia resident who alleged that the liner of her hip implant fractured shortly after being implanted,…

Drug & Device Law

Fraudulently Joined at the Hip

By Stephen McConnell on May 8, 2019

In some states (we’re looking at you, California) it is frightfully hard to win on fraudulent concealment removal where the plaintiff has joined an in-state distributor of a drug or medical device. In other states, defendants have more of a shot. Today’s case, Harris v. Zimmer Holdings, Inc., 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 71025 (S.D.N.Y. April 26, 2019), is one of the latter. The plaintiff was an Ohio citizen who claimed personal injury from a hip…

Drug & Device Law

Sixth Circuit Upholds Ruling that Kentucky Champerty and Usury Laws Bar Litigation Funding

By Stephen McConnell on May 1, 2019

We used to author occasional “There’ll Always Be Posner” posts, highlighting the latest ruminations of that lively, capacious intellect. But it is doubtful whether we will ever have occasion to pen another such post, since Judge Posner stepped down from the Seventh Circuit. But Judge Danny Boggs still sits on the Sixth Circuit, and he still seems to have his fastball. We’ve mentioned a couple of times our admiration for Judge Boggs — he of…

Drug & Device Law

Cannabidiol Product Liability Claims Go Up in Smoke

By Stephen McConnell on April 24, 2019

Every day our inbox overflows with legal news aggregation emails. Some of the items are useful. Some must have been authored by Captain Obvious. Some are irrelevant to our practice. We would have thought that comfortably residing in that last category are discussions of the burgeoning marijuana field. The “Week in Weed” and other such periodic news blasts clue us in that there are loads of lawyers out there working on something that would have…

Drug & Device Law

Delaware Federal Court Rejects Innovator Liability

By Stephen McConnell on April 17, 2019

It’s tax week, so expect a lot of cases this week from that wonderful no-tax paradise, Delaware. With light traffic (iffy on I-95, to be sure), one can get from our office to Delaware in under a half hour. That’s a worthwhile trip for buying anything in triple or higher digits. It’s also a worthwhile trip if one hankers for decent court rulings. The Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas is a Hobbesian war of all…

Drug & Device Law

E.D. Michigan Dismisses Hernia Mesh Case for Lack of Safer Alternative

By Stephen McConnell on April 3, 2019

A product is not defective simply because someone was harmed by it. That seems a simple enough point. Courts often acknowledge it, though sometimes in a perfunctory, mumbling fashion. What gives teeth to the mumbling is when state law requires the plaintiff to show a safer alternative product. If really pressed, many plaintiffs cannot articulate a safer alternative product. All they really can and want to articulate is the awfulness of the product, the bad…

Stephen McConnell

Missouri Federal Court Finds No Specific Jurisdiction over Kansas Knee Implant

Protein Shake Preemption

Dark Web Provider Escapes Wrongful Death Drug Case

Law Review Article Critiques Local Government Public Nuisance Suits

W.D. Va. Rejects Fraudulent Joinder and Fraudulent Misjoinder Arguments; Remands Case

Fraudulently Joined at the Hip

Sixth Circuit Upholds Ruling that Kentucky Champerty and Usury Laws Bar Litigation Funding

Cannabidiol Product Liability Claims Go Up in Smoke

Delaware Federal Court Rejects Innovator Liability

E.D. Michigan Dismisses Hernia Mesh Case for Lack of Safer Alternative

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