Hoosier Daddy, Part 510(K): FDA Clearance Is Admissible

It is now 2019, but we are still finding bits of leftover 2018 business on our desk and in our emails. Towards the end of last year, we encountered an avalanche of good rulings from the Southern District of Indiana in the Cook IVC filters litigation. Here is one we found hidden in the toe of our Christmas stocking: In re Cook Medical, Inc., IVC Filters Marketing, Sales Practices and Product Liability Litigation, 2018 WL 6617375 (S.D. Ind. Dec. 18, 2018). It is nice enough; it is not as if we are going to drive to the mall and return it. But there are some parts to it that we don't love so much. Those parts are like ugly socks that we deposit in the bottom of a drawer and hope never to see again.

The plaintiff moved in limine to preclude evidence of 510(k) clearance of the medical device. The primary basis for such preclusion was Federal Rule of Evidence 402 - lack of relevance because the 510(k) process does not provide a reasonable assurance of the device's safety and efficacy. That's the argument, anyway. Prior to the pelvic mesh litigation, that argument was a sure loser. But, sadly, a couple of the pelvic mesh courts have swallowed this bogus argument hook, line and stinker. (Then again, we know of at least one recent non-mesh decision that rejected the no-510(k) argument, and we were so pleased that we deemed that decision one of the ten best of last year.)

As we have shown in a previous walk-through of this issue, the exclusion of 510(k) clearance is based on an over- or misreading of the SCOTUS Lohr decision, where the High Court contrasted the less rigorous 510(k) process with the Pre-Market Approval process. Lohr included loose language about how 510(k) clearance was limited to substantial equivalence with a predicate, rather than an independent demonstration of safety and efficacy. But SCOTUS itself subsequently reeled in that loose language in Buckman, recognizing that substantial equivalence was, in fact, a way of establishing safety. Moreover, the FDA itself subsequently tinkered with the 510(k) process and its characterization of it so as to make clear that 510(k) clearance is about safety. It is not as if the FDA would clear products it does not believe are safe. So where are we, or where should we be, when it comes to 510(k) clearance? Such clearance might not be enough to preempt a state law tort, but it is still relevant to legitimate defenses and should, therefore, be admissible.

Where does the S.D. Indiana Cook decision...