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July 29, 2026
CHICAGO — A woman who alleges that her infant daughter developed necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) after consuming cow’s milk-based-infant formula (CMBF) manufactured by Abbott Laboratories Inc. before passing away did not show that an alternative warning label would have prevented her child’s death, the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held in affirming a grant of summary judgment for the manufacturer in the first bellwether case in multidistrict litigation pending in Illinois.
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July 29, 2026
ASHEVILLE, N.C. — A woman who alleges that a defective bone cement used during a 2018 surgery failed to bond her knee prosthesis to her bone, forcing her to undergo a third revision surgery to fix, filed notice in a North Carolina federal court that she has agreed to a voluntary dismissal of her case.
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July 29, 2026
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — A North Carolina judge held that commercial general liability insurers have no duty to compensate Harris Teeter Supermarkets Inc. and Harris Teeter LLC for their alleged share of liability under a global settlement agreement resolving hundreds of lawsuits seeking damages allegedly caused by the distribution and dispensing of opioid drugs by The Kroger Co. and its affiliates and subsidiaries, concluding that Harris Teeter is not “legally obligated to pay” any of the damages under the settlement and, therefore, no coverage is owed.
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July 29, 2026
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — A Connecticut federal judge ruled that Novo Nordisk Inc. failed to show that testimony from a warnings expert retained by a hospital system that was sued in a class action brought by patients who may have been exposed to blood-borne illnesses was inadmissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 702.
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July 29, 2026
ST. LOUIS — A Missouri appeals court affirmed a lower court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of insurers in a coverage lawsuit brought by a trust that was created in a bankruptcy proceeding for the benefit of individuals harmed by major producers of opioid pharmaceutical products, agreeing with the lower court that the products-completed operations hazard (PCOH) exclusion barred coverage.
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July 27, 2026
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — A Virginia federal judge held that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration acted arbitrarily and capriciously when it instituted a 2023 risk evaluation and mitigation strategy (REMS) decision that removed the in-person dispensing requirement for the abortion drug mifepristone but added certain pharmacy certifications and other requirements, remanding the decision to the agency for further review.
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July 27, 2026
LOS ANGELES — Concluding that a trade association “articulates a viable theory of injury” but lacks standing because “it fails to allege sufficient facts to show its members have suffered that injury,” a California federal judge on July 24 dismissed with leave to amend a suit in which the association argued that the Employee Retirement Income Security Act preempts a California state law that purports to impose fiduciary duties on the pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) of self-funded health plans.
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July 23, 2026
NEW YORK — A New York federal judge on July 22 found that opinions offered by an expert retained by one of the few plaintiffs remaining in the M/L Taper hip multidistrict litigation are unreliable and that he could not establish what caused the man’s device to fracture; the judge also granted summary judgment to the manufacturer because of the exclusion of the expert testimony.
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July 23, 2026
New developments in the following mass tort drug and device cases are marked in boldface type.
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July 23, 2026
MINNEAPOLIS — A Minnesota federal judge held that because the manufacturer of a spinal cord stimulator did not invoke preemption until it filed its motion to dismiss, plaintiffs who allege that they were injured by the device lacked standing to bring claims under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration when they filed the complaint and granted the agency’s motion to dismiss in a series of cases.
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July 23, 2026
DENVER — The manufacturer of an insulin pump that a father alleges malfunctioned and led to the death of his son moved to dismiss the wrongful death complaint in a Colorado federal court, contending that each claim is expressly preempted by federal law and fails as a matter of law.
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July 23, 2026
PENSACOLA, Fla. — The manufacturers of Depo-Provera, a long-lasting injectable contraceptive that allegedly caused women to develop intracranial meningiomas, a type of brain tumor, recommended three cases to serve as replacement pilot cases in the multidistrict litigation in a Florida federal court after the parties have reached a settlement agreement to resolve all cases that “meet the eligibility criteria agreed to by the Parties”; the women whose cases were suggested responded with varying degrees of opposition to the designation.
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July 22, 2026
PHILADELPHIA — The Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on July 21 vacated the certification of a class of third-party payers (TPPs) who paid for prescriptions for Avandia after finding that the statistical evidence presented in the district court to prove that alleged fraud by GlaxoSmithKline LLC (GSK) caused them to pay more for diabetes drug showed proof of correlation but failed to meet the appropriate causation standard.
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July 22, 2026
NEWARK, N.J. — An attorney representing the manufacturer of Ozempic, Wegovy and Rybelsus told a federal magistrate judge in New Jersey that the drugmaker and an aesthetic medical practice facing allegations that it improperly marketed and sold compounded drug products that purport to contain semaglutide are continuing their efforts to settle the case.
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July 22, 2026
DENVER —A Colorado federal judge’s ruling that dismissed a putative class action filed by women who allege that a company made false and misleading representations to consumers about its preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy (PGT-A) “essentially imposes a burden that is scientifically and practically impossible to satisfy due to the very design of the technology at issue; a fact Plaintiffs are prepared to establish through expert opinion,” the women argue in a motion for reconsideration.
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July 22, 2026
ORLANDO, Fla. — A man who alleges that a femoral nail product broke after it was placed in his knee filed his third amended complaint after the first complaint was dismissed without prejudice for failure to identify the specific product that he claims was defectively designed and the second amended complaint was dismissed without prejudice after the manufacturer filed an unopposed motion to dismiss one count.
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July 22, 2026
JACKSON, Miss. — A Mississippi federal judge partially granted a motion to dismiss filed by a surgical robotic navigation and guidance system manufacturer but found that the failure of a man who alleges he was injured by the device when it malfunctioned to specifically cite the Mississippi Products Liability Act (MPLA) is not fatal to his claims.
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July 21, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A pharmaceutical company’s filing of a petition with the District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to review the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s denial of a new drug application (NDA) deprived the district court of jurisdiction to hear the company’s argument that the FDA erred or to consider whether the employee who made the decision was improperly appointed, a federal judge in the District of Columbia held.
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July 21, 2026
NEW ORLEANS — The manufacturers of mifepristone, one of two drugs used to induce early termination of pregnancy, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration filed separate briefs urging the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to affirm a district court’s denial of Louisiana’s motion to stay the FDA’s 2023 decision that removed the in-person dispensing requirement for the drug, arguing that there was no abuse of discretion by the district court and that the state lacks standing to bring the case.
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July 14, 2026
NEW YORK — The Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on July 13 vacated rulings excluding the testimony of four general causation experts retained by parents who allege that prenatal exposure to acetaminophen causes autism or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and the resulting judgments, remanding to the multidistrict litigation judge, who had dismissed the cases for lack of causation.
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July 10, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPMDL) granted Nevro LLC and Globus Medical Inc. an extension to respond to a transfer motion filed by individuals who allege that they were injured by defective spinal cord stimulators and ask that their cases be centralized in a multidistrict litigation, separate from the one pending against Boston Scientific.
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July 09, 2026
New developments in the following mass tort drug and device cases are marked in boldface type.
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July 09, 2026
TACOMA, Wash. — The manufacturer of an insulin pump removed to a Washington federal court a wrongful death complaint alleging that a defect in the device caused a man to die from diabetic ketoacidosis, asserting that complete diversity exists between the parties and that “given the nature of the alleged injuries and damages being sought, it is likely the amount-in-controversy exceeds $75,000.”
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July 09, 2026
NEW ORLEANS — The en banc Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals will hear oral argument on Sept. 9 in a review of a panel ruling that granted Louisiana’s motion to stay the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s 2023 decision that removed the in-person dispensing requirement for mifepristone, one of two drugs used to induce early termination of pregnancy, after the U.S. Supreme Court put the decision on hold.
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July 09, 2026
TAMPA, Fla. — A Florida federal judge largely denied a motion for summary judgment filed by the manufacturer of a surgical mesh implant but found that without evidence of intentional misconduct or gross negligence, punitive damages are not warranted.