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The Impact Of Wyeth V. Levine On Fda Regulation Of Prescription Drugs, Richard C. Ausness

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

On March 4, 2009, the United States Supreme Court decided Wyeth v. Levine. In that case, the Court concluded that the plaintiff's failure to warn claim against the makers of the drug Phenergan was not impliedly preempted by the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FDCA). In doing so, the Court rejected the argument of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that tort claims of this nature stand as an obstacle to federal regulatory objectives. This article evaluates the Court's opinion in Wyeth and examines that decision's impact on subsequent litigation in the area of prescription drug labeling. In …

Applying Jewish Legal Theory In The Context Of American Law And Legal Scholarship: A Methodological Analysis, Samuel J. Levine

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Miranda, Dickerson, And Jewish Legal Theory: The Constitutional Rule In A Comparative Analytical Framework, Samuel J. Levine

Scholarly Works

In this Essay, Professor Levine briefly explores Dickerson v. United States, the important 2000 decision in which a divided United States Supreme Court held that the standard established in Miranda v. Arizona continues to govern the admissibility of confessions, notwithstanding a federal statute enacted subsequent to Miranda that provided an alternative standard. Levine addresses broader theoretical implications of the approaches adopted by the majority and dissenting opinions in Dickerson. Drawing a parallel to the interpretation of the Torah in Jewish legal theory, he proposes a comparative framework for analyzing the division between the majority and dissent over the concept and …

Untold Stories Of Goldman V. Weinberger: Religious Freedom Confronts Military Uniformity, Samuel J. Levine

Scholarly Works

In 1986, the United States Supreme Court handed down a 5-4 decision ruling that Air Force regulations prohibiting Simcha Goldman from wearing a yarmulke while in uniform did not violate Goldman’s First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion. The Court’s majority opinion, which accepted the government’s assertion that allowing Goldman to wear a yarmulke would unduly upset important military interests, drew unusually harsh responses from both dissenting justices and legal scholars. Yet, upon closer examination, perhaps what stands out most about the events surrounding the Goldman decision is the untold story of the case, which differs in significant …

Chevron's Sliding Scale In Wyeth V. Levine, 129 S. Ct. 1187 (2009), Gregory M. Dickinson

Gregory M Dickinson

In Wyeth v. Levine the Supreme Court once again failed to reconcile the interpretive presumption against preemption with the sometimes competing Chevron doctrine of deference to agencies' reasonable statutory interpretations. Rather than resolve the issue of which principle should govern where the two principles point toward opposite results, the Court continued its recent practice of applying both principles halfheartedly, carving exceptions, and giving neither its proper weight.

This analysis situates Wyeth within the larger framework of the Court's recent preemption decisions in an effort to explain the Court's hesitancy to resolve the conflict. The analysis concludes that the Court, motivated …