NJ Allergan Ruling Adds Confusion to Doctor Testimony Rule

New Jersey trial attorneys are concerned that a recent state Supreme Court ruling reviving a product liability suit against Allergan could rattle litigation involving medical testimony.

Justice Anne M. Patterson’s May 27 decision—an ostensible win for the plaintiffs’ bar—found that a plaintiff expert’s take that an Allergan treatment is likely the cause of a patient’s blindness might be admissible after the lower court analyzes some factors in a hearing.

But sandwiched in the ruling was a passage lawyers say seems to have created an expert report requirement for a patient’s treating physician to testify—a mandate that can’t really be ...