Now over 25 years old, Brown v. Superior Court established a significant precedent regarding medical products liability, and products liability generally. In addition to its specific holdings, Brown has been credited with articulating the three separate theories of products liability—manufacturing defect, design defect, and failure to warn—at a time when these were often lumped into … Continue Reading
The Ninth Circuit has provided product manufacturers some potent ammunition in their ongoing efforts to keep hindsight bias from infecting the scope of their constructive knowledge in failure-to-warn claims. In defending such claims, manufacturers often struggle to define what risks associated with their products were “knowable” from the scientific literature (and thus within the scope of … Continue Reading
CAPPING AT THREE. AB2740, a new version of an old bill pending in the California State Legislature, would cap the amount of punitive damages available in California to a flat three times the jury’s award of compensatory damages. AB2740 The previous version died in Committee. The new iteration (tacked onto a National Guard bill, of all … Continue Reading
