This is a tricky one. In Hirchak v. W.W. Grainger, Inc., https://ecf.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/20/11/192642P.pdf (8th Cir. 11/17/2020), the plaintiff was injured at work when a web sling broke and dropped a load of steel tubing on him. The plaintiff couldn’t sue the manufacturer, Juli Sling Co. Ltd., because it’s a Chinese company, not subject to the jurisdiction of American courts. So he sued W.W. Grainger, Inc. (“Grainger”), which had allegedly sold the Juli sling to the plaintiff’s employer, Weiler, Inc.
This question was recently answered in the affirmative by California’s intermediate court of appeals in Bolger v. Amazon.com (4th App. Dist., Div. One, 8/13/2020), https://static.reuters.com/resources/media/editorial/20200813/bolgervamazon--opinion.pdf, and in the negative by the Ohio Supreme Court in Stiner v.
If that headline made you blink, don’t worry – you read it correctly, and it accurately states what happened. The case is Markel v. Douglas Technologies Group, https://ecf.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/20/08/192637P.pdf (8th Cir.
Rule 702 of the Minnesota Rules Evidence provides that “[an expert’s] opinion must have foundational reliability.” This is the functional equivalent of Fed. R. Evid.
Last April I wrote about the FDA’s decision to ban the use of surgical mesh devices for transvaginal repair of pelvic organ prolapse (“transvaginal mesh” or “pelvic mesh”). https://www.videntpartners.com/blog/2019/fda-bans-surgical-mesh-transvaginal-repair-pelvic-organ-prolapse. Of course, because transvaginal mesh was used for that purpose for 14 years (2002-2016), the resulting litigation isn’t over yet. The most recent case to come to my attention is Kaiser v.
Last week I wrote about the FDA’s decision to ban surgical mesh for transvaginal repair of pelvic organ prolapse (POP). The FDA took this action only after tens of thousands of lawsuits were filed to recover for injuries caused by transvaginal mesh, 4 years of heightened FDA surveillance of transvaginal mesh complications, more than 2 years that the FDA gave the manufacturers to produce sufficient evidence that the benefits of transvaginal mesh repair of POP outweigh the risks, and an additional year for the FDA to determine that the manufacturers had not produced the required evidence.
The FDA’s announcement of the ban is at https://www.fda.gov/MedicalDevices/ProductsandMedicalProcedures/ImplantsandProsthetics/UroGynSurgicalMesh/default.htm:
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals recently resolved a split among its district courts on an issue relating to removal from state to federal court based on diversity jurisdiction. Gibbons v.
I’m sure our readers will remember the multiple lawsuits filed against Ford in 2013, with attendant heavy media coverage, claiming that certain Ford vehicles were prone to unintended acceleration (UIA). The cases were consolidated in the U.S.
Material for a law-related blog sometimes comes from an unexpected source.
