Last fall we wrote about the Third Circuit’s opinion endorsing the snap removals, making it the first circuit opinion in the country to approve such practice. This week, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit followed the Third Circuit’s lead and affirmed snap removals.
Continue reading “DOUBLE SNAP! Second Circuit follows Third Circuit to Endorse Snap Removal”
Third-party payor (TPP) claims against pharmaceutical companies are nothing new. The arguments are common – TPP insurers claim financial injury arising out of payments made for alleged medically unnecessary prescriptions written for numerous insureds/ beneficiaries. In some instances, the TPP plaintiffs point to evidence or allegations of off-label promotional activity to support the claims of lack of medical necessity; and sometimes the TPP plaintiffs attempt to bolster their allegations of “medically unnecessary” prescriptions by advancing a variation of the garden variety failure-to-warn narrative:
Continue reading “Reliance Remains a High Hurdle in Establishing Third-Party Payor Claims”
A proposed amendment to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30(b)(6) – the rule governing deposition notices directed to organizations – seeks to impose a new meet-and-confer requirement on parties.
Continue reading “Parties Face New Discovery Obligations Under Proposed Rule 30(B)(6) Amendment”
A recent Appellate Court opinion in a premises liability case alleging back pain has the potential to be a pain in the neck for defense lawyers seeking to argue for possible alternative causes of plaintiff’s injuries in a personal injury cases in Illinois. In Campbell v. Autenreib, 109 N.E.3d 332 (2018), the Fifth District held that testimony about the potential alternative causes of plaintiff’s injuries elicited through cross-examination of the plaintiff’s treating physician was too speculative to be admitted in the absence of any defense expert testimony supporting the alternative causes. This opinion expands on the Illinois Supreme Court’s opinion in Voykin v. Estate of DeBoer, 192 Ill. 2d 49 (2000), which held that in most cases defendants must present expert testimony about the relevance of a prior injury or medical condition in a personal injury case.
In this age of exorbitant costs and increasingly high stakes in civil litigation, a robust summary judgment mechanism – one capable of terminating cases lacking in merit long before the extraordinary expense of final trial preparation and trial – is simply critical to a properly functioning civil litigation system.
Recently, Division 8 of the Second Appellate District, California Court of Appeal did its part by contributing to several ongoing debates in California law related to the admissibility of expert declarations offered to oppose motions for summary judgment. Fernandez v. Alexander, 2019 WL 336517 (Jan. 28, 2019)(certified for publication). The court weighed in, at least implicitly, on these important issues:
