Robert Johnston Speaks on Preemption in Drug Product Liability at WLF Webinar
May 6, 2021
The May 2021 webinar, Preemption in Drug Product Liability: The Latest on Changes Being Effected" and the Impact of Albrecht, was hosted by Washington Legal Foundation.
As noted by WLF, [t]he Supreme Court’s May 2019 Merck v. Albrecht decision clarified that judges, not juries, should analyze a prescription drug maker’s federal preemption defense in failure-to-warn suits. Under Albrecht, courts must decide whether companies could unilaterally add a warning under federal labeling rules.
At the webinar, Mr. Johnston and fellow panelists examined recent court decisions implicating warnings and preemption, among them Janssen Pharm. v. A.Y., a state court decision that the company appealed to the Supreme Court and on which cert petition the justices could rule in May.