Insights

Washington – June 24, 2024: Crowell & Moring has been recommended in eight practice areas in the 17th edition of the Legal 500 United States. In addition, partner Daniel Forman, co-chair of the firm’s Government Contracts Group, has been named to the Legal 500’s “Hall of Fame” for Government Contracts.

Washington – June 6, 2024: Crowell & Moring earned 78 rankings for 67 lawyers, as well as 41 national and statewide practice area rankings, in the Chambers USA 2024 guide. The rankings are driven by independent interviews of clients and lawyers at peer firms.

Washington – June 1, 2023: Crowell & Moring earned 82 rankings for 68 lawyers across 48 categories, as well as 37 national and statewide practice area rankings, in the Chambers USA 2023 guide. The rankings are driven by independent interviews of clients and lawyers at peer firms.

Many medical device companies are accustomed to defending product liability litigation, and the applicability of product liability law to traditional medical devices is not usually questioned. But as an increasing number of medical devices are themselves software or include some software-based function – from clinical decision support tools to robotic surgery machines – an important question becomes: is medical device software a “product” within the meaning of product liability law? This threshold issue has the potential to be claim or even case dispositive for defendants facing allegations of defective device software.

In Brown v. GlaxoSmithKline, LLC and Providence Health System – Oregon, 323 Or. App. 214 (Ct. App. Or. 2022), the Oregon Court of Appeals recently found that a hospital could be a “seller” of pharmaceutical drugs under Oregon law, subjecting it to strict products liability for alleged drug defects.  This decision contravenes—and thus threatens to upset—the overwhelming consensus among U.S. courts that hospitals are not strictly liable for allegedly defective drugs or medical devices used in the course of providing medical care to patients. 

Cyberattacks have become an omnipresent threat in our society, affecting every industry. On Friday, July 2, the biggest ransomware attack on record hit thousands of victims in at least 17 countries, including at least 200 companies in the United States. Hackers demanded $70 million in cryptocurrency to provide a decryption key. This attack followed on the heels of two high-profile ransomware attacks on U.S. infrastructure: the May Colonial Pipeline attack and the June attack on JBS, the world’s largest meat processing company.

A trend in product liability litigation has emerged over the past few years: Plaintiffs’ attorneys are increasingly choosing to bring class actions based on “economic loss” instead of the more traditional personal injury claim.

The 26th Annual Conference on Drug & Medical Device Litigation 2021 is a conference dedicated to litigation trends and strategies in the drug, medical device and biotechnology industries. The conference will bring together leaders and litigators involved in the drug, medical device and biotechnology industries including in-house counsel, outside counsel and government enforcers.

During this 90-minute webinar, Karin Moore, General Counsel of the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), will moderate a panel of Crowell & Moring attorneys who will offer insights on legal developments in the Food & Beverage industry. We will also provide a demo of the Crowell & Moring and GMA co-branded industry tracker of litigation and regulatory trends, which provides regular updates related to litigation, safety, labeling, ingredient, and nutritional content issues.