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November 12, 2026
NEWARK, N.J. — A woman who alleges that she suffers from serious visual injuries as a result of taking the bladder drug Elmiron filed a complaint directly in the multidistrict litigation for the drug in a federal court in New Jersey.
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November 12, 2026
BOSTON — Medtronic Inc. is a “monopolist that wins through exclusionary conduct what it cannot win on the merits,” a competitor alleges in a complaint filed in a Massachusetts federal court, contending that the medical device company holds a majority share of the market for laparoscopic universal handle staplers through practices that prevent fair competition.
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November 11, 2026
PHILADELPHIA — The judge overseeing the Zantac mass tort litigation centralized in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas reiterated in a supplemental opinion his impartiality, explaining that a settlement eliminated claims against Apotex Corp., the only defendant in the proceedings represented by his wife’s law firm.
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November 10, 2026
ATLANTA — In a coverage dispute over claims that an insured’s failure to monitor for, investigate, report and stop suspicious orders of opioids contributed to the crisis, the Georgia Supreme Court accepted a reframed certified question from the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to decide whether damages asserted in 26 underlying lawsuits constitute damages “because of bodily injury” as set forth in commercial general liability and umbrella insurance policies and interpreted by Georgia law.
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November 10, 2026
SILVER SPRING, Md. — Manufacturers of glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1 RA) medications must add labeling warnings about a potential increased risk of non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION), a rare eye condition that can cause permanent vision loss, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced Nov. 9.
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November 09, 2026
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The Alaska Supreme Court on Nov. 6 revived the state’s public nuisance claim against retail pharmacies over their alleged role in fueling the opioid epidemic, holding that Alaska sufficiently alleged that the pharmacies’ failure to fulfill their legal duties when dispensing opioids unreasonably interfered with public rights.
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November 09, 2026
PHOENIX — The Arizona federal judge overseeing the multidistrict litigation involving C.R. Bard Inc.’s implanted port catheter (IPC) device granted a bellwether plaintiff summary judgment on certain affirmative defenses but declined to bar Bard from presenting evidence that catheter placement, rather than an alleged device defect, caused her thrombosis.
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November 06, 2026
SEATTLE — A Washington state judge on Nov. 5 ordered Albertsons Companies Inc. and Safeway Inc. (collectively, Albertsons) to pay $800 million for opioid abatement and $100 million in civil penalties after finding that their opioid distribution and dispensing practices created a public nuisance and violated the state’s consumer protection law.
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November 05, 2026
New developments in the following mass tort drug and device cases are marked in boldface type.
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November 05, 2026
NEW YORK — Tylenol manufacturer Kenvue Brands LLC urged the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to uphold sanctions against Keller Postman LLC and Ashley C. Keller and reject their request to reassign the acetaminophen autism spectrum disorder-attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ASD-ADHD) multidistrict litigation, arguing that the trial judge acted within her discretion.
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November 05, 2026
HOUSTON — Eli Lilly and Co. asks a Texas federal court to issue a permanent injunction to stop an e-commerce company from marketing and selling weight-management products that purportedly contain retatrutide, an investigational molecule that Lilly has developed for use as a prescription medicine.
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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.”