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November 04, 2026
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Walmart Inc. challenged primary and excess insurers’ petitions seeking rehearing of an Arkansas appellate court’s ruling that affirmed partial summary judgment in its favor in its lawsuit seeking a declaration that the insurers have a duty to defend thousands of underlying actions alleging that it contributed to the opioid crisis by selling and dispensing opioid medications, arguing that the appeals court correctly held that the gravamen of the opioid litigation is not based on its intentional malfeasance but on its failure to put proper controls in place to find and report opioid orders that were suspicious.
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November 04, 2026
ATLANTA — The 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals declined to hear an interlocutory appeal in the Paragard intrauterine device (IUD) multidistrict litigation on whether a manufacturer’s alleged delay in analyzing safety data permits that analysis to retroactively qualify as newly acquired information under the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s changes-being-effected (CBE) regulation.
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November 03, 2026
PHOENIX — A spinal implant manufacturer argues in an Arizona federal court that it is entitled to summary judgment because no admissible evidence links a fractured pedicle screw to a design defect, while separately seeking to exclude an engineering expert’s opinions as unreliable under Federal Rule of Evidence 702.
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November 03, 2026
SAN ANTONIO — A Texas federal judge left intact the dismissal with prejudice of a compounding pharmacy’s antitrust claims against the manufacturers of glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1 RA) medications approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, finding no manifest legal error in her conclusion that the pharmacy’s compounded GLP-1 drugs were not meaningful market alternatives to the manufacturers’ branded products.
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November 03, 2026
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A couple sued CooperSurgical Inc. in a New Mexico federal court, alleging that embryo culture media manufactured without magnesium, an ingredient essential to embryonic development, destroyed their embryo and caused physical injuries, emotional distress and financial losses.
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October 30, 2026
LOS ANGELES — Four patients with diabetes sued the manufacturer of insulin pumps in a California court, alleging that defective retainer rings in the pumps could cause improper insulin delivery and that the company failed to adequately warn consumers.
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October 30, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a new final regulation issued Oct. 29 that concerns pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) fees, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) requires disclosures that it says responsible fiduciaries of large self-insured group health plans “will be able to use . . . in their process of selecting a provider of pharmacy benefit management services, engaging an affiliated broker or consultant, and monitoring these service providers’ operations and compliance with contractual obligations.”
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October 30, 2026
SEATTLE — An endoscope manufacturer asked a Washington federal court to dismiss a widow’s product liability and wrongful death suit or transfer it to Illinois, arguing that she previously agreed to litigate there before voluntarily dismissing her claims and refiling in Washington.
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October 28, 2026
TRENTON, N.J. — A New Jersey federal judge declined to grant a preliminary injunction sought by Novo Nordisk Inc. to halt certain advertising by Eli Lilly and Co. that compares the effectiveness of competing glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist medications.
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October 28, 2026
PEORIA, Ill. — A federal judge in Illinois denied a motion to transfer a lawsuit involving an allegedly defective Medtronic Inc. spinal cord stimulator to a Minnesota federal court, finding that the plaintiff’s surgery, alleged injuries and device-related marketing in Illinois outweighed the manufacturer’s arguments favoring transfer.
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October 27, 2026
NEW YORK — The Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals issued a mandate that vacated lower court rulings that excluded the testimony of general causation experts retained by parents who allege that prenatal exposure to acetaminophen causes autism or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and reversed the resulting judgments after denying a petition for rehearing and/or rehearing en banc filed by the manufacturer of Tylenol and retailers.
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October 20, 2026
DOVER, Del. — Albertsons and its affiliated grocery store chains filed a reply brief in support of its appeal seeking Delaware Supreme Court review of a lower court’s holding that commercial general liability insurers have no duty to defend and indemnify it against underlying lawsuits seeking to hold it liable for damages arising from the opioid epidemic, seeking reversal and remand to allow the lower court to conduct a full choice-of-analysis to determine whether the California or Idaho law would have applied the same insurance law principles as Delaware.
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October 19, 2026
CLEVELAND — The Ohio federal judge overseeing the opioid multidistrict litigation denied a motion to dismiss filed by pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) affiliates after finding that the court has personal jurisdiction under a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) provision and “pendent claim personal jurisdiction over the related state-law claims.”
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October 15, 2026
NEW ORLEANS — Louisiana submitted a letter to the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals after it heard oral argument in a case disputing whether the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s 2023 decision that removed the in-person dispensing requirement for mifepristone, a drug used in medication abortions, was unlawful; Louisiana argues that a complaint filed by three states and a motion in the U.S. Supreme Court illustrate how a favorable decision in the Fifth Circuit “will eliminate the flood of FDA-approved mifepristone into the State.”
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October 15, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A District of Columbia federal judge granted a California company’s petition to recognize and enforce a split International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) tribunal’s award worth $17.8 million for attorney fees and costs that the company incurred arbitrating a pharmaceutical licensing dispute brought against it by a Swiss company, which the Swiss company has already paid, and adopted specific findings regarding the dispute, which the Swiss company had opposed.
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October 15, 2026
New developments in the following mass tort drug and device cases are marked in boldface type.
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October 15, 2026
CHICAGO — An Illinois federal judge dismissed with prejudice a suit filed against the Chicago White Sox (CWS) and Major League Baseball (MLB) by a former pitching prospect alleging negligence and violations of the Illinois Human Rights Act (IHRA), arising from allegations that the defendants required that he be vaccinated for COVID-19, which the prospect alleged ultimately ended his career, finding that the suit is time-barred.
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October 15, 2026
PHILADELPHIA — The Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals partially vacated the dismissal of a pro se plaintiff's defective medical device lawsuit after finding that his failure-to-warn claims are preempted by federal law but that his manufacturing defect and negligence claims may proceed.
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October 14, 2026
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — CVS Pharmacy Inc. and certain subsidiaries have agreed to pay $315 million to resolve federal allegations that they violated the False Claims Act (FCA) and the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) by filling prescriptions for opioids and other controlled substances that allegedly lacked a legitimate medical purpose and submitting those prescriptions for reimbursement from federal health care programs, the government announced Oct. 13.
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October 14, 2026
NEW YORK — The Federal Trade Commission and seven states on Oct. 13 asked a federal court in New York to hold former pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli in civil contempt, alleging that his trading in pharmaceutical company stocks and public commentary about drug companies violate a lifetime ban from the pharmaceutical industry imposed after an antitrust trial.
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October 14, 2026
PHILADELPHIA— One day after the parties filed voluntary stipulations of dismissal, a federal judge in Pennsylvania issued three separate orders dismissing with prejudice three insurers in an opioid litigation coverage dispute brought by the trustee of a general unsecured creditors’ trust formed after the pharmaceutical company insured filed for bankruptcy.
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October 13, 2026
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — The Alabama Supreme Court affirmed a lower court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of a general liability insurer and insurance agencies in a pharmacy insured’s coverage lawsuit arising from an underlying $4.75 million judgment entered against it in an action alleging that it caused injuries by improperly compounding prescription medication, ruling that the policy’s professional services exclusion bars coverage because all of the underlying claims “have their origin in, grow out of, or flow from” the insured’s compounding error.
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October 13, 2026
BOSTON — The First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of a woman's wrongful death lawsuit against the manufacturer of the migraine drug Aimovig on federal preemption grounds but ruled that a Massachusetts federal judge erred in denying the woman an opportunity to amend her complaint to allege that newly acquired scientific information permitted the manufacturer to strengthen the drug's warnings.
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October 12, 2026
NEWARK, N.J. — Three women who allege that they and others like them each spent thousands of dollars on preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy (PGT-A) cannot establish standing under a benefit-of-the-bargain theory, a New Jersey federal judge found, granting a motion to dismiss filed by the manufacturers of a testing product.
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October 12, 2026
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — An Arkansas appeals court panel affirmed a lower court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Walmart Inc. in its lawsuit seeking primary and excess coverage for its costs in defending thousands of underlying actions alleging that it contributed to the opioid crisis by selling and dispensing opioid medications, holding that the gravamen of the opioid litigation is not based on intentional malfeasance by Walmart but on its failure to put proper controls in place to find and report opioid orders that were suspicious.