N.D. Ohio Preempts Some Opioid Claims (No, Not THAT Case)

The Covid-19 lockdown period is approaching the six-month mark, from mid-March to mid-September. Throughout the spring and summer we have been reading old novels with convoluted plots and surprise endings. Today we take a look at an old case, though only from a prior decade, not a prior century. If the case is convoluted, it is largely because the plaintiffs made it so, though the court also got in on the chaos. As for the surprise ending, it is unclear if that results from the court getting things right as much as it did, or from getting things wrong as much as it did.

Kelley v. Insys Therapeutics, Inc., 2019 WL 329600 (Jan. 25, 2019), caught our attention because it discussed preemption of claims involving an opioid. The federal court deciding the matter sat in Cleveland, though it is not the same one handling the massive opioids MDL