Contrary to rumor, we are not on the verge of changing our name to the Filter Device Litigation blog. True, we are now on a several consecutive weeks run of sharing very good IVC opinions. In fact, we will likely have two this week. The recent outbreak of good sense largely emanates from Indiana, but today's case, Broge v. ALN Int'l, Inc., 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 204486 (N.D. Cal. Dec. 3, 2018), shows that logic can prevail even in (gasp) the Bay Area. Hold your nasty comments – we were born in the Bay Area and admire it endlessly. Our native-son regard for the place does not prevent us from acknowledging that defense-friendly product liability wins there are as rare as football wins this season on either side of the Bay. But the Raiders and 49ers both won last Sunday, and now we have a case from ND Cal. that insists that plaintiffs lob in the occasional fact in their complaints. Sometimes man bites dog. Sometimes Adam Sandler puts out a good movie. Sometimes a politician commits candor. Sometimes our kids answer our texts.

In Broge, the plaintiff's IVC filter had become embedded in her vena cava wall. It took two surgeries to remove the filter. She sued in Santa Clara County Superior Court, alleging strict liability failure to warn and manufacturing defect, breach of warranty, negligent and fraudulent misrepresentation, and the inevitable violations of California Business & Professions Code sections 17200 and 17500. The only defendant was ALN International, though the complaint devoted a lot of space to the conduct and knowledge of other entities, including ALN Implants Chrirugicaux and ALN Implants. The case was removed to federal court on the basis of diversity of citizenship, and then the defendant filed a motion to dismiss. The court granted the motion in part, and its opinion noted that it was odd of the complaint to sue one entity based on alleged sins of another. That opinion can be found at Broge v. ALN Int’l, Inc., 2018 WL 2197524 (N.D. Cal. May 14, 2018). The plaintiff was given leave to amend and did so, but did not do so very well. The defendant filed another motion to dismiss. In scrutinizing the amended complaint, the Broge court did not merely cite the Twombly and Iqbal cases, it actually applied them. That spelled doom for the amended complaint, which did not contain much beyond bare conclusions.

Take the failure to warn claim, for example. The plaintiff alleged that another entity, ALN Implants, should have known and discovered the defects. That would not affix liability to the actual defendant in the case. Further, as is all too typical, the amended complaint contained mere conclusions that better warnings would have altered the physician's decision to prescribe the IVC filter. The plaintiff's curative amendment cured nothing.

The manufacturing defect claim fared no better. In an earlier complaint, the plaintiff simply said the product "contained manufacturing defects." That is obviously not good enough. On the next go-round, the plaintiff said that the IVC filter at issue did not conform to a hook design that should have permitted easy removal. Well, that at least seems a bit better. But the amended complaint still failed to allege how the product deviated from the design – all it talked about was the result. Even worse, the amended complaint still, almost perversely, hung the alleged hook malfunction on an entity that was not in the lawsuit, ALN Implants.

The negligent misrepresentation claim offered no facts suggesting that the defendant lacked reasonable grounds to believe its safety and efficacy representations were not true, the warranty claim rested in part upon a representation by a third party, and the fraud claim lacked specificity on the who, what, when, where, and how. The Cal. Bus. Code claims were merely fraud claims in another guise, so they also did not make the grade. There was also a claim for punitive damages. Because that claim was derivative of the fraud claim, it, too, was a goner.

The Broge court dismissed the claims, but because California is a land of not just second, but third, chances, the plaintiff was given, again, leave to amend. Perhaps the court will eventually grow weary of reading threadbare complaints that contain more ambition than facts. As long as the court keeps coming out with precise, demanding opinion that respect pleading standards, we won't grow weary of reading such opinions.

This article is presented for informational purposes only and is not intended to constitute legal advice.