Since Conte in 2008, we have not made a secret of our view that innovator liability is a bad idea, contrary to traditional tort law principles and to sound public policy. We, especially Bexis, may even be accused of being somewhat obsessed with chronicling the decisions, big and small, on this issue over close to a decade. We have kept a scorecard of the decisions and commemorated the one-hundredth decision. We tracked when the Alabama legislature got sick of the turbulent expansion by the courts and kept product liability limited to the product designed, manufactured, or sold/leased by the defendant. We have peppered our top and bottom ten lists with these decisions and we expect they will find places on our august enumerations for the eleventh year in a row this December.
The decision in In re Zofran (Ondansetron) Prods. Liab. Litig., MDL No. 1:15-md-2657-FDS, 2018 WL 2317525 (D. Mass. May 21, 2018), has familiar ring to it. Among the claims presented in this MDL are those against the branded manufacturer from the offspring of women who received generic versions of a prescription antiemetic. These plaintiffs sought to impose innovator liability on the theory that the branded manufacturer had made misrepresentations to unspecified doctors that somehow encouraged the off-label prescription to pregnant women for morning sickness without disclosing a purported risk of birth defects. (As an aside, while not in the decision, this is considered an essential medication by WHO and the current labeling suggests that FDA rejects that any birth defect risk has been established.) Last year, the court ruled on a motion to dismiss this version of innovator liability under Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, New York, and Oklahoma law. We discussed it here and it took on honorable mention on last year’s top ten list. Other plaintiffs persisted with these claims and the branded manufacturer defendant filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings. After some voluntary dismissals, the court considered the issue under the law of Oklahoma (again), Connecticut, and New Jersey.
Why is this worth a post instead of just an update to our scorecard? Well, there have been two really big, bad decisions on innovator liability since the court’s prior decision and we like to make sure the majority position continues to hold after such dreck. The first innovator abomination was T.H. v. Novartis Pharm. Co., which we railed about here and took over the spot of worst case of 2017 in a rare supplemental shuffling of the list. We have said quite a bit about why this decision, and the Court of Appeals decision before it, were especially bad, extending innovator liability into perpetual liability under the guise of foreseeability. A few months later, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court a mile away from the Zofran MDL issued its own stinker in Rafferty v. Merck & Co., Inc., reversing a lower court rejection of innovator liability. Even with the “limitation” that innovator liability would only for “reckless” conduct in failing to update the branded drug’s label, there is a good chance that this will find a place on the list of 2018’s worst come December. There was also a good decision a few weeks ago from the West Virginia Supreme Court soundly rejecting innovator liability in McNair v. Johnson & Johnson, which may end up with a place on 2018’s best list. More important than our lists—breathe, Bexis, breathe—is that the Zofran court reviewed and considered these decisions before addressing the merits.
The Oklahoma plaintiff’s claim was easy, given the court’s evaluation of Oklahoma law less than a year ago. “While it is true that the minority view has gained ground in the last year with the California and Massachusetts opinions, that is not sufficient under the circumstances to tip the balance.” 2018 WL 2317525, *4.
The court had not previously considered Connecticut law and the Connecticut state courts had not previously considered the issue. The Sixth Circuit had, though. Connecticut was one of the 22 states at issue in In re Darvocet, which we lauded here before giving it the top spot in our 2014 list. The Darvocet analysis was that the Connecticut Product Liability Act provided the sole remedy for misrepresentation claims asserted and it required the product at issue to be the defendant’s to impose liability. While not binding, “In re Darvocet is a 2014 decision by a federal appellate court that addresses the issue in comprehensive terms, and there appears to be no Connecticut authority suggesting a contrary result.” Id. at *5.
Predictably, In re Darvocet (in the district court) had addressed New Jersey law and New Jersey lower courts have addressed the issue a few times, even if the New Jersey Supreme Court has not. They all came out against innovator liability, with pre-Conte cases followed post-Conte. (See here and the New Jersey part of this.) The New Jersey PLA also limits liability to the manufacturer or seller of the product that allegedly hurt the plaintiff and misrepresentation claims like the plaintiffs assert against the branded manufacturer are subsumed by the NJPLA. Id. Thus, there is no innovator liability under New Jersey law.
Despite our retrospective here, we do not see this decision making this year’s top ten list. However, the First Circuit could certainly take high honors by affirming this or the prior Zofran MDL decision. Just saying.