N.D. Alabama Issues Mixed Bag of Branded Preemption Rulings

We like bright lines in the law.  They streamline arguments for lawyers and, more important, they make it easier for non-lawyers to conduct their affairs with some degree of predictability.  Rear-end a car and you're liable, even if the other guy stopped short.  Leave a sponge behind in a patient's abdomen, and you and your operative team are on the hook.  The thing speaks for itself, and the thing it speaks is very bad for your defense case.  Utter a negative statement about someone in a courtroom, and you're immune from libel liability.  Say the same thing on the courthouse steps, and you might be in trouble.  Sell a pharmaceutical product with a federally approved label, and when someone sues you for failure to warn you're ... uh oh. Thanks to the Supreme Court's opinion in Wyeth v. Levine, you're still in the soup if you could have added warnings via the Changes Being Effected (CBE) provision.  You might not like that rule, but at least it's clear, right?  Wrong.