PEARL O NEILL v. NOVARTIS CONSUMER HEALTH, INC., PART I
Rejection of proposed jury instruction that compliance with government standards cannot be considered as a basis for assessing the safety of a product in a design defect claim was not error; trial court correctly told jurors that "FDA action or inaction, though not dispositive, may be considered to show whether a product is safe or not safe." In determining whether to allow defendant drug manufacturer to challenge the validity of study relied on by plaintiff by presenting evidence that some of the cases in the study were misclassified, trial court was not required to follow Kelly standards for admission of scientific evidence, since the evidence was not based on new scientific methodology, but rather was a challenge to the professionalism with which the methodology was applied. Trial court properly precluded plaintiffs from offering into evidence minutes of defendant's "project team" meetings where such minutes were prepared months after the meetings, and thus did not fall within hearsay exception for business records, and did not constitute admissions since the persons whose comments were memorialized were not authorized to speak for defendant.
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