Articles Posted in Products Liability

A Maryland District Court has denied a class action on behalf of Maryland residents who own certain model years of Ford Explorers, Mercury Mountaineers, and Ford Windstars.

This is not a personal injury lawsuit. Plaintiffs’ lawyers claimed front seats in the class vehicles are defective because they are prone to collapse rearward in moderate speed rear-impact collisions. In fact, the proposed class action would exclude everyone who has suffered an injury.

The plaintiffs’ suggested class is individuals who own vehicles that cannot withstand 20,000 inch-pounds of torque without deforming backward. (Admittedly, I don’t fully understand this but let’s proceed on pretending that I do.)

Sean Wajert’s MassTort Defense Blog (c/o Torts Prof Blog) has an interesting post on a new opinion by the Iowa Supreme Court on whether you can admit subsequent remedial measures in cases that sound both in negligence and strict liability.

The Iowa court found that Plaintiff’s design defect and failure-to-warn claims involving the jack pin used on a boat trailer sound in negligence, rather than strict liability. Interpreting an Iowa law that, like Maryland’s law, is substantially similar to Federal Rule 407, the court held that Rule 5.407’s carve-out for strict liability in tort and breach of warranty claims does not apply to designed defect claims, but is intended only for product liability claims alleging a manufacturing defect.

Mr. Wajert supports the court’s holding in his blog post:

We can hold hands and agree with the Drug and Device Law Blog on few things related to drug and medical device litigation but this is one: we hate Medicare liens and the government is making life even more difficult for parties on both sides of the v. As usual, they have a very complete post laying out this issue, focused on the defense lawyers’ perspective but much of it applies to plaintiffs’ lawyers.

The FDA has warned users of weight loss drug Hydroxycut to stop taking the popular weight-loss product because of risk of severe liver damage. The Hydroxycut recall focuses us all for the zillionth time on FDA’s inability to sufficiently police so much as a high school prom. But they never do anything about it.

The FDA is officially in the “Britney Spears Zone” for just about everyone. If they accidentally approved heroin capsules tomorrow, the New York Times and the Washington Post’s editorial sections would light up for a week. Then it would be back to business as usual and nothing would change.

The FDA announced that it will now require Botox and its progeny to provide a black-box warning. The FDA said the labeling is necessary to warn doctors and patients that Botox has potentially fatal complications, including problems with swallowing or breathing. The FDA has identified at least 225 reports of medical problems among patients treated with Botox and similar drugs.

If there was a stock available in 2004 called “The FDA Will Eventually Require Black Box Warnings for Botox But It Will Take Awhile”, I would have bought a ton. Unbelievably predictable.