The Supreme Court justices on Tuesday heard a case involving whetherfederal law governing the Food and Drug Administration’s pre-marketapproval of medical devices pre-empts state product liability claims. Asecond argument concerned peremptory challenges to African-Americanjurors in a death penalty case in which the prosecutor made referencesto the O.J. Simpson murder trial.
Riegel v. Medtronic asks whether state law product liabilityclaims involving medical devices that received pre-market approval bythe FDA are pre-empted by a provision of the Medical Device Amendmentsto the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.
