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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.
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October 09, 2026
MINNEAPOLIS — A California woman has filed a complaint in the Bair Hugger multidistrict litigation alleging that the forced-air warming device used during surgery caused her to develop a surgical site infection, more than a decade after the litigation was centralized in a Minnesota federal court.
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October 06, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Federal injury cases alleging that Abbott Laboratories’ spinal cord stimulators (SCS) are defective and caused injuries will be centralized in an Illinois federal court, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation said in granting a motion to transfer.
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October 06, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPMDL) agreed to centralize cases alleging injuries from spinal cord stimulators manufactured by Nevro LLC and Globus Medical Inc. and assigned the multidistrict litigation to U.S. Judge Haywood S. Gilliam Jr. of the Northern District of California.
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October 06, 2026
SEATTLE — A Washington federal judge granted a stipulated motion to stay a case in which King County asserts a public nuisance claim against two pharmacy benefits managers (PBMs) for allegedly helping create and perpetuate the opioid epidemic until two bellwether cases pending in the national opioid multidistrict litigation are concluded.
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October 06, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 5 invited the solicitor general to file a brief expressing the views of the United States on a petition for a writ of certiorari by drug makers seeking consideration of two antitrust questions after the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals vacated the dismissal of a putative class complaint by federally funded health centers and clinics alleging that there is a concerted effort to restrict drug discounts offered to contract pharmacies.
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October 05, 2026
PHOENIX — The attorney general of Arizona, on behalf of the state, filed a complaint in state court against two of the nation’s largest pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), seeking to hold them “accountable for their unlawful acts and practices” that allegedly helped fuel the state’s opioid epidemic by promoting opioid use, failing to prevent diversion and using prescription claims data to facilitate an oversupply of the drugs.
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October 05, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Oct. 2 granted an application to extend to Nov. 3 the deadline for Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) to file a petition for a writ of certiorari in a case in which the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld Louisiana’s law regulating the distribution of drugs purchased through the federal Section 340B Drug Pricing Program.
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October 05, 2026
CINCINNATI — The Ohio federal judge overseeing the national opioid multidistrict litigation failed to conduct the individualized diligence inquiry required by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16 and abused his discretion by allowing approximately 800 plaintiffs to belatedly amend their complaints to assert claims against pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), a Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held Oct. 2 in granting mandamus relief.
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October 01, 2026
CHICAGO — A pharmacist who filed a qui tam complaint against Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc., Walgreen Co. and various subsidiaries (collectively, Walgreens) on allegations that the company violated federal law by filling millions of invalid controlled-substance prescriptions and seeking payment through Medicare and other federal health care programs must turn to state courts to resolve his claims that 28 states owe him a portion of the funds they recovered in a multistate agreement reached with Walgreens and in a settlement to end federal claims reached after the government intervened.
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October 01, 2026
TOLEDO, Ohio — A couple “failed to allege facts plausibly connecting the alleged malfunction” of an allegedly defective implantable drug infusion pump “to a manufacturing deviation within the meaning of” Ohio law, an Ohio federal judge held in dismissing their product liability claims without reaching Medtronic’s federal preemption arguments.
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October 01, 2026
New developments in the following mass tort drug and device cases are marked in boldface type.
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October 01, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — Family members and the estate of a woman who died of breast cancer cured the deficiencies of their amended complaint alleging that the manufacturers of Risperdal knew that the use of their prescription medications increased the risk of cancer and failed to warn patients or their health care providers, a California federal judge held, denying a motion to dismiss.
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October 01, 2026
PHOENIX — The Arizona federal judge overseeing the multidistrict litigation involving C.R. Bard Inc.’s implanted port catheter (IPC) device denied a motion for summary judgment filed by C.R. Bard Inc. and related companies, clearing the way for the third bellwether trial in the MDL on product liability claims brought by a woman who alleges that a Bard PowerPort implanted for chemotherapy caused a bloodstream infection and sepsis.
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September 30, 2026
SHERMAN, Texas — Novo Nordisk Inc. is seeking a permanent injunction barring a compounding pharmacy from selling certain compounded semaglutide products, alleging in an amended complaint filed in a Texas federal court that the pharmacy gains an unfair competitive advantage by selling drugs that have not received U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval.
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September 30, 2026
LOS ANGELES — A pro se plaintiff’s claims under California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and the California Consumers Legal Remedies Act (CLRA) that Boston Scientific Corp. failed to disclose an allegedly elevated failure rate for an artificial urinary sphincter are time-barred and inadequately pleaded under the learned intermediary doctrine, a California federal judge held, dismissing the claims with leave to amend.
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September 29, 2026
NEW YORK — The Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals signed an order allowing parties to file amicus curiae briefs in support of the manufacturer of Tylenol and retailers in their bid for appellate court rehearing and/or rehearing en banc to reconsider its July opinion that vacated rulings excluding 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 the resulting judgments.
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September 28, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — A Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling reversing the remand of an opioid suit against pharmacy benefit managers provides additional support for rehearing a Ninth Circuit decision allowing California's similar suit to proceed in state court, the PBMs tell the Ninth Circuit in a notice of supplemental authority filed as the court considers their petition for rehearing following the U.S. Supreme Court's April ruling in Chevron U.S.A., Inc., et al. v. Plaquemines Parish, et al.
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September 28, 2026
SPARTANBURG, S.C. — Finding there is no controlling precedent from the South Carolina Supreme Court as to the meaning of “damages because of bodily injury” in the context of a coverage dispute for more than 350 lawsuits seeking damages that were allegedly caused by the distribution of opioids in a manner that caused addiction, injury and death, a federal judge in South Carolina denied cross-motions for summary judgment filed by a drug distributor insured and its insurers and directed the parties to confer on a proposed question or questions to certify to the state’s high court.