Health Law Daily Wrap Up, PRODUCTS LIABILITY (DEVICES)—D. Conn.: Court holds Novo Nordisk to one-dispositive-motion rule, denies summary judgment, (Jul 30, 2026)

By Jeffrey H. Brochin, J.D.

Where scheduling order made very clear that only one dispositive motion was allowed to be filed per party absent leave of court, Novo Nordisk's second motion for summary judgment was duplicative and in violation of the order.

A federal District Court in Connecticut has denied the second Motion for Summary Judgement filed by Novo Nordisk, Inc. (Novo Nordisk or Manufacturer) in a products liability lawsuit brought by Griffin Health Services Corp. (Griffin or Hospital) regarding a lack of proper warnings on Novo Nordisk’s insulin pens. The court previously denied Novo Nordisk’s Motion to Strike the testimony of Griffin’s expert witness, and, their earlier Motion for Summary Judgement; yet, the Manufacturer brought a second Motion for Summary Judgement despite the court’s order having been clear that only one dispositive motion was permitted to be filed. Rather than deny the second Motion in a perfunctory manner, the court highlighted why the Motion was to be substantively denied (Griffin Health Services Corp. v. Novo Nordisk, Inc., No. 3:24-cv-01045-JCH (D. Conn. July 24, 2026)).

Lack of multi-patient use warning. Novo Nordisk designs, manufactures, and distributes prefilled, disposable insulin delivery devices (pens) approved by the FDA, that Griffin used at its hospital. During the period 2008-2014, the pens did not contain any warnings as to the risk of backflow of biological materials and risk of bloodborne infections if an insulin pen was used on more than one patient. Novo Nordisk only placed a “For Single Patient Use Only” warning label on their insulin pens after the FDA required Novo Nordisk to do so in February 2015, which was almost one year after Griffin Hospital discovered that members of its nursing staff had used insulin pens on multiple patients.

On July 24, 2026, the court weighed Novo Nordisk’s Motion for Summary Judgement as to Griffin’s claims for failure to warn, negligence, negligent misrepresentation, breach of implied warranty, and design defect, denying all of those bases for summary judgement. Presently before the court was Novo Nordisk’s second Motion for Summary Judgement, which was also denied.

Motion practice background. After multiple Amended Complaints and subsequent Motions to Dismiss, Novo Nordisk withdrew its last Motion to Dismiss on November 4, 2025. Expecting that an expert would be needed if Novo Nordisk filed a summary judgment motion, on November 26, 2025, Griffin requested an extension of time to disclose their expert. Griffin argued that good cause existed for the extension request because they had been uncertain if the case would proceed past dismissal, and did not want to incur further costs of preparation of an expert disclosure and report. Recently completed fact discovery needed to be disclosed to the expert to provide a full and complete report. Nevertheless, Novo Nordisk filed its Motion for Summary Judgment 5 days after Griffin’s Motion to Extend had been filed, having informed the court of its intention to file an opposition to Griffin’s Motion to Extend.

Novo Nordisk in fact filed their opposition the Motion for Extension of Time, and the court, in the exercise of its discretion, granted the extension over Novo Nordisk’s objections. Novo Nordisk acknowledged that Griffin’s expert, Dr. Goldhaber, was disclosed timely to all parties as an expert witness by December 24, 2025, and before the December 26 deadline. In January 2026, the court entered a modified scheduling order providing Novo Nordisk an opportunity to depose Dr. Goldhaber.

Filing of second Motion for Summary Judgement. The court’s Rule 26f Scheduling Order made very clear that only one dispositive motion was allowed to be filed: “Dispositive Motions: Each party to this action may file one (1) dispositive motion . . . no party may file more than one such motion without prior leave of the court.”. Notwithstanding the court’s order, counsel for Novo Nordisk submitted two motions regarding summary judgment, and failed to seek leave from the court to do so. Because counsel for Novo Nordisk failed to abide by the court’s order, the court denied the second Motion for Summary Judgment as duplicative of the first Motion for Summary Judgment and in violation of the order of the court.

Brief consideration of the second Motion for Summary Judgement. Notwithstanding the court’s denial, the court nevertheless briefly considered the Second Motion for Summary Judgment. Comprised of 46 pages, approximately 40 of those pages appeared to the court to be practically identical to the First Motion for Summary Judgment. Although the filing of the second Motion for Summary Judgment was referred to by the court as ‘a waste of both this court’s and opposing counsel’s time, inter alia, to ascertain what was newly added,’ the court chose to cite a few examples of where the motion was deemed to contain misleading and unsupported statements.

Omission of full witness statement. Novo Nordisk’s counsel wrote: “As Plaintiffs’ CEO stated, ‘Novo Nordisk is only responsible for the training of the people who showed up at the training session.’ However, upon reading the cited testimony, the court found it ‘striking’ that counsel did not include the rest of the sentence which stated, “and the question of responsibility, I can’t say.”

Although counsel for Novo Nordisk wrote regarding the prohibition of sharing insulin pens, that the ‘issue of not sharing pens was conceded by the plaintiffs’, and a “fundamental concept of nursing” and “common sense” and something every nurse should know, a few pages later, in the CEO’s same deposition, he clearly testified that the nurses were not aware of the possibility of contamination in using Novo Nordisk’s pen. Therefore, that issue was not in fact ‘conceded’ as counsel mislead the court. Novo Nordisk’s counsel also argued, “It is also undisputed that Plaintiffs played a direct role in the violation of this law, as well as their longstanding policy against sharing medication, as conceded by Plaintiffs’ CEO”. But the court found that nowhere was it “undisputed” that Griffin played a direct role in any unlawful action.

Citations to ‘warnings’ not authenticated. The court also took issue with the motion’s ‘Statement of Facts’ which read: ‘the warnings accompanying the NovoLog® and Levemir® FlexPens®, including on their boxes and in package inserts, were functionally the same for purposes of this lawsuit.’ However, the court found that upon examining the Declaration, neither the Declaration nor the separate report referred to addressed either the (1) warnings or (2) the boxes and package inserts.

In another reference, it was stated that the boxes of insulin pens each included two bolded warnings, stating “Warning” and indicating that insulin pens are “for single person use only as shown below.” However, there was no evidentiary support submitted by Novo Nordisk that the picture of the box in the SOF was a picture of the box that was shipped to Griffin, nor that such a box was in use during the relevant time period of September 2008 to May 2014. Furthermore, there was no declaration or any support to authenticate the picture of a box as relevant to any box at issue in the case.

Based on the foregoing, the court denied the second Motion for Summary Judgement.

The case is No.: 3:24-cv-01045-JCH.

Judges: Hall, J.

Attorneys: David Alexander Dayya (Murphy & Bach LLP) for Griffin Health Services Corp. Lesley P. Chuang (DLA Piper LLP) for Novo Nordisk Inc.

Companies: Griffin Health Services Corp.; Novo Nordisk Inc.

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