In the consolidated cases Actavis Elizabeth, LLC v. Mensing, Actavis v. Demahy and PLIVA v. Mensing [oral argument transcript, PDF], the court heard arguments on whether generic drug manufacturers can be held liable for not including more information on a label than mandated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) [official website]. In the opinion below, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held [opinion, PDF] that, just as claims against manufacturers of name-brand drugs are not preempted by the Food Drug and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) [materials], claims against manufacturers of generic drugs are similarly not preempted. Petitioners argue mainly that the Hatch-Waxman Act [21 USC § 355] mandates that generic drugs be labeled with the same warnings as name-brand drugs, and thus they cannot be held liable at the state level for a federally-imposed conformity. Because this is an untenable situation, Petitioners argue that federal preemption should apply, and attempted to distinguish this case from the court's decision in Wyeth v. Levine [JURIST report], by saying that, unlike generics, manufacturers of name-brand drugs had the "ability, had the obligation, to ... actually change the label."