Jury Selection in the Age of Conspiracy Theories and Distrust with Tara Trask

April 4th, 2024|Categories: ELP, HB Emerging Law Notes|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

In this episode, we discuss picking juries in an age of misinformation, general distrust, tribalism, unleashed social media surfers, and unorthodox legal strategies unfolding on a daily basis with Tara Trask of Trask Consulting, jury and trial expert. "Jury service is an opportunity for everyday Americans to interact with an important institution, our courts, and play their part as citizens,"Trask says. "The court system could very well be our saving grace in trying to hang on to our democracy." Listen now.

‘Substantial Equivalence’ Ruling Presents a ‘Quandary’

March 17th, 2018|Categories: HB Tort Notes|Tags: , , , , , , |

From the Drug & Device Defense Law Blog and a post by Reed Smith's Rachel B. Weil ... In In re Bard IVC Filters Prods. Liab. Litig., 2018 WL 1109554 (D. Ariz. Mar. 1, 2018), the court ruled on a number of motions in limine in advance of a mid-March trial.  The plaintiff alleged that she was injured when defendant’s filter, inserted in her inferior vena cava (“IVC”) to capture blood clots, migrated and fractured.  The filter that was implanted in the plaintiff, a Class II device, was granted 510(k) clearance by the FDA because of its “substantial equivalence” to an earlier filter model the defendant had marketed.  And that is the source of the most interesting rulings. The ruling presents a quandary. We have spent many years defending manufacturers of Class 2 medical devices and advocating for admission of evidence of 510(k) clearance. We can appreciate the tension and the difficulty of drawing appropriate evidentiary lines.  But evidentiary lines and regulatory requirements are different.  This is a variant of the same fallacy underlying the 510(k) admissibility point discussed above.  FDA regulatory requirements and admission of evidence in civil litigation are two different things, created for different purposes, and often don’t mix well. That is true here. For one thing, there is more to 510(k) than just substantial equivalence (“SE”).  The entire relevant part [...]

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