Will High Court Provide Clarity On ‘Clear Evidence’?
- The U.S. Supreme Court may soon revisit one of its seminal decisions defining products liability law for pharmaceutical manufacturers. That decision — Wyeth v. Levine — addressed whether a branded manufacturer could be held liable for state-law failure-to-warn claims even though federal law regulates... ›
WARNING: Proposition 65 Farce About to Repeat Itself for Vulnerable Foods and Flavorings
Plaintiffs have begun serving Proposition 65 notices of violation alleging unwarned exposures to furfuryl alcohol (FFA). Like acrylamide, which has been the subject of significant Proposition 65 litigation already, FFA is present in a wide variety of foods and flavorings and forms as a... ›Round One Goes to Roundup: Court Temporarily Enjoins Proposition 65 Warnings for Glyphosate and Glyphosate Residues in Foods
By: William F. Tarantino
Last Monday, a federal judge temporarily barred California from requiring cancer warnings on products that contain detectable amounts of glyphosate—the main ingredient in Monsanto’s flagship herbicide Roundup. Trace residues of glyphosate in food products had already become a potential target of Proposition 65 bounty... ›Personal Delivery Devices (PDD): New Transportation Frontiers Emerge for Autonomous Vehicle Rulemakers
By: Tessa Schwartz
With regulatory frameworks around autonomous vehicles (AVs) under development at the federal, state, and local levels, new autonomous technology frontiers are emerging for rulemakers. The latest is personal delivery devices (PDDs) – essentially small autonomous vehicles designed primarily for last-mile logistics using sidewalks and... ›California Opens the Road to Fully Driverless Cars; Federal Policymaking Slowly Rolls Forward
By: Tessa Schwartz
On February 26, 2018, the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) announced new regulations allowing fully driverless cars to be tested on California roads as of April 2, 2018. The announcement culminates a multi-year process undertaken by DMV. The new regulations mark a significant... ›California Proposes Next Group of Priority Products Under Its Green Chemistry Initiative
By: William F. Tarantino
California’s Green Chemistry Initiative has taken another step towards regulating a widely available consumer product. On February 15, 2018, the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) released a discussion draft document entitled "Product – Chemical Profile for Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFASs) in Carpets... ›California’s Green Chemistry Agency Issues Its Draft 2018-2020 Three-Year Priority Product Work Plan
By: William F. Tarantino
On February 8, 2018, the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) released a Draft Three-Year Priority Product Work Plan (2018-2020) (new Work Plan) under its Safer Consumer Products (SCP) Program. The SCP Program is an innovative regulatory scheme to evaluate and require safer... ›3D Printing Meets Medical Devices: FDA Weighs In On Additive Manufacturing
By: Erin M. Bosman and Julie Y. Park
In December, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued guidance on Technical Considerations for Additive Manufactured Medical Devices. The guidance represents FDA’s efforts to provide regulatory direction about additive manufacturing (AM)—the broad field of 3D printing—of medical devices. Specifically, AM makes objects by... ›Connected Devices Bring New Product Liability Challenges
By: Erin M. Bosman and Julie Y. Park
“My Google Home Mini was inadvertently spying on me 24/7 due to a hardware flaw,” wrote a tech blogger who purchased Google Inc.’s latest internet of things (IoT) device. Following the incident, a pact of consumer advocacy groups insisted the U.S. Consumer Product Safety... ›Old Republic – Personal Jurisdiction Trending Defendant Friendly
In a recent decision regarding the scope of personal jurisdiction, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals extended the recent trend of limiting the reach of personal jurisdiction over out-of-state defendants. Old Republic Insurance Co. v. Continental Motors , Case No. 16-1408, (10th Cir. Dec.... ›