Litigation

Chief Justice Hannah Dissents From United States Supreme Court's Medtronic Decision in His Despain Concurrence

By H. William Allen et al.

Chief Justice Jim Hannah's concurrence in Despain v. Bradburn is also a ringing dissent from the United States Supreme Court's holding in Riegel v. Medtronic. Chief Justice Hannah's concurrence is consistent with but, perhaps, more vigorous than Justice Ginsburg's Medtronic dissent, which expressed concern that the majority's decision "cut[s] deeply into a domain historically occupied by state law."

The Chief Justice writes:

I am . . . compelled to express my dismay at the summary abandonment of venerable principles of state common law that have been developed over many generations. By a conclusory and incomplete analysis, our law is dismissed. In the place of well-reasoned judicial decisions reaching back to the England of Blackstone, injured plaintiffs are told that instead of looking to their common law for redress they must look to a regulatory agency that has no power to grant them any redress.

Further, the MDA, which was enacted to protect the public against defective and unsafe medical devices through federal regulation, is now turned on its head and instead grants immunity to the providers of medical devices. I believe that the United States Congress will step in to amend the MDA and heal the injury caused in this case; however, the injury done to the common law and principles of federalism will not be so easily healed.

Justice Robert L. Brown joined the Chief's concurrence.

Full post as published by Arkansas Business Litigation Blog on April 10, 2008 (boomark / email).