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We’ve made no secret of our dislike of the so called “heeding presumption.” We have a tag on this subject with multiple posts decrying this presumption — that juries may presume that if an alternative adequate warning had been given, it would have been heeded by the plaintiff (or, in prescription medical product cases, the prescriber). That is essentially a shift of the burden of proof on warning causation from plaintiffs to defendants without any justification. Warnings are ignored all the time.

Our posts note that it is a fairly even split between jurisdictions rejecting and those adopting the heeding presumption. But we’ve taken special note of New York law on the issue because it is a bit muddled. In a post a couple of years ago we explained how a bad Second Circuit decision on the issue (Liriano v. Hobart Corp., 170 F.3d 264 (2d Cir. 1999)) overreached and ignored New York state court precedent spawning a line of cases which purport to recognize a general heeding presumption. At that time we predicted it would require a decision from the New York Court of Appeals to clean up the mess the federal and lower courts had made. We came close to such a decision last year in In re New York City Asbestos Litigation, 59 N.E.3d 458 (N.Y. 2016) (“NYC Asbestos”). Unfortunately, the court determined that the defendant had waived the issue of whether the heeding presumption existed in New York. But, in dicta, went on to say:

[Defendant’s] current complaint about the court’s instructions on the presumption is unpreserved. Of course, our rejection of [defendant’s] claim on preservation grounds should not be taken as an acceptance or rejection of the trial court’s heeding instructions on the merits, and regardless of the propriety of those instructions, trial courts must continue to ensure that their jury instructions honor the principle that the burden of proving proximate causation, which in a case like this one includes the burden of demonstrating that the injured party would have heeded warnings, falls squarely on plaintiffs.

Id. at 482 (emphasis added).

We are happy to report today that that dicta has not gone unnoticed in the drug and device context. Last week, a New York federal court ignored the line of cases from Liriano and instead cited NYC Asbestos and basic New York causation law to hold that New York doesn’t recognize a heeding presumption. The case is Adeghe v. Janssen Pharmaceuticals, 2017 WL 3741310 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 30, 2017) and involves allegations that plaintiff developed gynecomastia as a result of his use of Risperdal. Id. at *1.  In addition to NYC Asbestos, the court relied on other cases for the general proposition that plaintiff bears the burden of proof that the alleged failure to warn was a proximate cause of his injury and that plaintiff’s burden “includes adducing proof that the user of a product would have read and heeded a warning had one been given.” Id. at *6.

The court provided a strong rationale for why the heeding presumption is not justified in drug/device cases:

Particularly in a case involving failure to warn of the risks of a pharmaceutical product, depending on the plaintiff’s condition and treatment alternatives, one may not reasonably assume that a patient or his treating physician will forego a drug because of disclosed risks.

 Id.

This is an important reminder about just what it means to apply a heeding presumption in a pharmaceutical case. The warnings at issue for drugs and devices are warnings about potential risks. Risks that the prescriber, the learned intermediary, needs to weigh against his knowledge of his patient, his patient’s medical condition, other available alternative treatments (and their risks), and his general medical knowledge. All of that cannot be swept under the rug with a presumption that an alternative warning would have tipped the scales toward non-prescription. Doctors prescribe drugs/devices everyday despite any number of risks inherent in their use.   At best a heeding presumption in a pharmaceutical case, if applied at all, should only go so far as to assume that the alternative warning would have been read by the prescriber. But, it is simply too huge a leap to presume the effect that new warning would have had on the prescribing decision given all the other variables.

In Adeghe, the court found no evidence (no prescriber testimony) that plaintiff wouldn’t have been prescribed Risperdal if a different warning had been given. Id. at *7. Moreover, plaintiff did not adduce any evidence that when the risks of the drug were balanced against its benefits, it would not have been prescribed. Id. “Plaintiff cannot rely on mere speculation as to this medical determination to defeat summary judgment.” Id. Kudos to the court for distinguishing prescription drugs and devices from household consumer goods.

Summary judgment was granted on plaintiff’s failure to warn claim (and on express warranty for lack of any affirmation, id. at *5), but several other causes of action remain because summary judgment was denied on medical causation. The court found plaintiff’s expert had done enough, reviewed studies and considered and addressed alternative causes, to survive a Daubert challenge. Certainly not the worst expert we’ve seen and hardly as important as the heeding presumption decision both for its help in further clarifying New York law and in its acknowledgement of why the presumption has no place in prescription drug and device cases.