Earlier this week, the Supreme Court declined to hear plaintiff’s challenge to the Fourth Circuit’s decision on an important aspect of medical device law in Walker v. Medtronic Inc., No. 11-1418 (U.S. 10/1/12).

The Court denied the petition for a writ of certiorari from plaintiff Walker, who appealed a Fourth Circuit decision that held that the 1976 Medical Device Amendments to the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act preempted her suit alleging that defendant’s medical device caused her husband’s death.  The denial may help to clarify the standard set forth in Riegel v. Medtronic, which held that state law requirements are generally preempted by the MDA.  More specifically, the case relates to the so-called “parallel violation claim” exception to the general rule of medical device preemption.  Readers may recall that some dicta in Riegel noted a theoretical possible exception for when a claim of a violation was “parallel” to and not different than the FDA’s actual requirements.

The court of appeals, 2012 WL 206036, slip op. (4th Cir. Jan. 25, 2012), offered a very narrow view of this exception, a good thing for manufacturers.  Walker alleged he had used a Class III device designed to infuse a preset amount of  medicine into the fluid that surrounded his spinal cord.  Plaintiff passed away, and a claim was filed alleging that the device was defective, leading to a fatal overdose.  Plaintiff’s attempt to evade the reach of preemption turned on language in the product literature that the device would give the specified dosages ±15%, language plaintiff said was a “guarantee of performance,” creating an un-preempted “parallel” violation claim.

The court held the parallel exception is quite narrow. The FDA has performance standards, under which a manufacturer must guarantee a particular level functioning or performance.  The FDA may condition its grant of premarket approval upon such performance standards if it determines that a performance standard is necessary to provide reasonable assurance of the safety and effectiveness of the device. See 21 U.S.C. §360d(a)(1).  But the establishment of a performance standard is a highly formal process, requiring notice, findings of fact on risks, and comments from interested stakeholders.

So, when a plaintiff asserts that a statement or representation or feature that hasn’t gone through the formal FDA procedure is a “performance standard,”  that is in fact asserting something different from or in addition to the FDA standards for the product within the meaning of the Act’s preemption clause. Thus, it is preempted.  The court of appeals concluded that the only mechanism for creating a binding, ongoing performance requirement is the creation of a performance standard. And the plus or minus 15 percent specification was not a performance standard.

That makes complete sense because the device in question was manufactured in full compliance with what the FDA required.   Expectations that may have been generated by literature surrounding the product are not the same thing as FDA standards. The device was not required to always dispense medication within the range of the plus or minus 15 percent.  And for plaintiff to try to sue over this feature would be to seek to impose a more demanding standard than that of the FDA, rather than just a parallel one.

Walker appears to be one of the first appellate court decisions to reject this type of claim on the basis that a mere device malfunction that does not relate to a formal performance standard is not going to be enough to establish a “parallel” violation claim. And the Supreme Court leaves it in place.