Last week we reviewed our 2020-25 Best and Worst lists to see if any patterns emerged in terms of the federal circuits. Our tentative conclusions were that the Fifth Circuit is pretty defense-friendly and that the Third Circuit is pretty active, both good and bad.
This week we surveyed state court cases from the same lists. We ended up with an even smaller sample, so any conclusions are even less valid. But let’s pretend we are an expert witness in Cook or Alameda County, and offer broad opinions premised on bare-bones data and shoddy methodology.
Here is what we found:
2020 best: Rios (Ill.), Boone (Ct.), Cavanaugh (Fla.), Stiens (Ky.),
2020 worst: Hammons (Pa.), Russell (Ky.), Mize (Cal.), Risperdal (Cal.),
2021 best: State ex rel. Hunter v. J&J (Okla.), Albert (Pa.), Hyrmoc (N.J.)
2021 worst: No state cases
2022 best: Dearinger (Wash.), Amiodarone (Cal.), Kline (Cal.)
2022 worst: Glover (Ct.), People v. J&J (Cal.), Blackburn (Ala.), Center for Inquiry v. Walmart, Inc. (D.C.)
2023 best: Center for Envtl. Health (Cal.), Onglyza (Cal.), Hyrmoc (N.J.), Alcazar (Ind.), M.T. v. Walmart (Kansas)
2023 worst: State ex rel. Shikada (Haw.), Estate of Cronin (Nevada),
2024 best: Shears (W. Va.), In re Natl. Prescript. Opiate (Ohio), Himes (Cal.)
2024 worst: Gilead (Cal.), Himes (Cal.), Providence Health Syst.-Oregon (Oregon), Zantac (Del.), Herzog (Cal.),
2025 best: Zantac (Del.), Eastern Maine Med. Cntr. (Maine), Silverstein (N.Y.)
2025 worst: Hall (Wash.), In re Ranitidine (Cal.)
It is no surprise that California produced the most bad cases – six. But it also produced the most good cases – five. And one of those bad cases was Gilead, with its wretched duty to innovate, which was recently reversed by the California Supreme Court in a decision that will make our 2026 Best list. So while we still think California’s view on admissibility of expert testimony is feeble (we wish Sargon was so gone), the real takeaway is that California is the biggest state with the most litigation, so it hogs the limelight for both good and ill. (We will resist saying anything too snarky about the west coast, but it is hard to miss the fact that, besides California, there are very bad cases from Nevada, Oregon, Washington, and, most western of all, Hawaii.) New Jersey is the only other state with more than one case from the Best list. Pennsylvania and Kentucky (we would not have guessed that last one) each planted one case among the Best and one among the Worst. So did Delaware, but it is the same case: the Delaware Supreme Court reversed the lower court’s bad expert rulings in the Zantac litigation. That reversal was not merely on the 2025 Best list, it topped the list.
As with the federal cases, our analysis is probably – check that, certainly – plagued by selection bias. The truth is that good and bad cases can show up anywhere. Count on California and New Jersey to keep us busy, and that is no cause for despair. For every bad case emerging from those benighted jurisdictions, there is usually a good one, as well.