Over 11 years ago the blog published a post called “Anatomy of a Mass Tort,” which endeavored to explain the life cycle of this type of litigation.  We’ve decided to revisit and update that post, given the changes that have taken place over the intervening years. And change it has.   Our original post mentioned class actions several times. It didn’t mention personal jurisdiction, multi-plaintiff complaints, third-party litigation funding, or plaintiff fact sheets. So…

Just two weeks ago, we largely praised an MDL court’s handling of sanctions for a plaintiff’s stonewalling in response to discovery obligations, but thought the plaintiff got off pretty light for some really egregious conduct.  Today, we report on a circuit court’s affirmance of discovery sanctions against a plaintiff counsel’s conduct for being overly aggressive in the pursuit of discovery. In light of the holiday today, we will be extra careful in how we describe…

We’ll get to today’s case in a moment, but first, a few words about SCOTUS and expiration dates.   One hundred and one years ago tomorrow saw the birth of Lewis Powell, who served as a United States Supreme Court Justice from 1972 to 1987.  Powell succeeded Hugo Black.  More interesting, considering current events, is that Powell was succeeded by Anthony Kennedy. Whether Judge Brett Kavanaugh succeeds Justice Kennedy is a matter of some some…

Although they have nothing to do with the Affordable Care Act, health-care-related so-called “death panels” do exist.  These panels are operated by state agencies and private health insurance companies, and they decide whether to reimburse as “medically necessary” (or some similar definition) any type of medical care that comes into question.  They’re an unfortunate necessary – quackery should not be reimbursed.  But such panels used to reject any form of off-label use, until states and…

We have always had a soft spot for zebras.   They are the equine world’s version of some of our favorite acquaintances — the ones who always dress a little outlandishly and always stand out from the crowd. (Fun facts:   1. Although most zebras have black stripes on a white background, a white-on-black specimen shows up every now and again.   2. All zebras have dark-pigmented skin under their coats, and the stripes are only hair-deep. Compare…

We sometimes sit around trading stories about the dumbest lawsuits we have ever seen. Our personal favorite is a class action that the Drug and Device Law Spouse defended years ago seeking damages against a national shipping company because items sent by “Second Day Air” did not always go in an airplane.  The packages arrived as promised, but the plaintiffs were shocked, shocked to learn that items sent from San Francisco to Palo Alto were…

This isn’t the first time we’ve written about the Hyde case in the Bard IVC Filters MDL.  Back in July we reported on some pretrial rulings in that bellwether case.  Get ready for more.  The decision on tap for today, Hyde v. C.R. Bard, Inc., 2018 WL 4215028 (D. Arizona Sept. 4, 2018), is sort of a man-bites-dog item, as it involves a motion in limine by the plaintiffs to exclude warnings information.  Generally, we…