MDLs are complicated. MDLs are chaotic, messy, and ugly unless they have structure and order. Bringing order to chaos. Something this blogger has championed for what’s starting to be more years than she wants to readily discuss. But without order, think of The Blob (the original 1958, Steve McQueen flick). It creeps. It crawls. It
Bexis has lots of opinions on what’s wrong with mass-tort (especially drug/device) MDLs. Heck, Bexis has even proposed amendments to the MDL statutes to correct the many severe problems that exist. Now, Congress has before it possible statutory changes (not holding our breath) and Civil Rules Committee is looking into the same problems. Maybe something
Anyone interested in what’s wrong with mass torts in today’s litigation landscape should read the recent article in the New York Times, “How Profiteers Lure Women Into Often-Unneeded Surgery,” which ran in the paper on April 14, 2018, and is available online here. Briefly, the article exposes litigation (and pre-litigation) conduct that amounts, at
On January 30, 2018, Judge Goodwin entered four case management orders in the Ethicon, Boston Scientific, Bard, and American Medical Systems mesh MDLS. These CMOs establish discovery and briefing deadlines for 13200, 6174, 2876, and 952, cases respectively – a total of 23202 cases.
The discovery and briefing schedules are identical in
A lot of time is spent in litigation on discovery. As tedious and non-exciting as it often is, cases can be won or lost depending on what happens during discovery. So, it’s not to be taken lightly. When we find ourselves arguing to the court about discovery, however, it is often without being able to
As we publish this post, lawyers in the Pinnacle Hip Implant MDL are gathering in the Bob Casey Courthouse in Houston or in coffee shops, breakfast cafés or law offices nearby awaiting the argument to come. At 10:00 a.m., the arguing starts. The Fifth Circuit will officially begin to consider whether to issue a
We’ve talked a fair amount about forum shopping on this blog. Forum shopping is largely in the control of plaintiffs’ counsel because they, within reason, get to choose where to file their clients’ lawsuits. And since they do need some reason, there are several frequently used methods by plaintiffs’ counsel when they’ve narrowed in on the court they’ve decided would be most favorable for their clients – typically state court. If a plaintiff wants to stay in state court where he/she resides, he/she sues a non-diverse party. In drug and device cases, that’s usually a pharmacy, a sales representative, a doctor. Sometimes the joinder of such a defendant is fraudulent and the case becomes removal, sometimes not. Another option is to sue a defendant in state court where the defendant resides, a court from which the defendant cannot remove the case. While venue in that scenario may be proper, where the only connection to the jurisdiction is the presence of the defendant, defendants have met with mixed success in arguing forum non conveniens. Just think, if plaintiff lives in Nebraska, ingested the drug in Nebraska, suffered her injury in Nebraska, but files suit in New Jersey – where is most of the discovery that is needed located? Especially discovery from third-parties who will require subpoenas. What state’s law is likely to apply to the bulk of the claims? Doesn’t make a lot of sense to be in New Jersey except for plaintiff’s preference to be in state court.
But what about when plaintiff’s choice of forum doesn’t turn out like he/she hoped? Should they get a do-over? A mulligan? A second chance? We don’t think so and neither did the court in Zarilli v. Johnson & Johnson, Docket No. ATL-L-1480-16, slip op. (N.J. Super. Law Div. Feb. 3, 2017). This case is one of several pending in New Jersey involving allegations of injury from the use of talc powder. The cases have been coordinated before a single judge for pre-trial proceedings. Plaintiff originally filed her suit in July 2016, and amended her complaint in September 2016. Defendants answered the complaint in October. Id. at 2.
Is the lesson learned by at least one plaintiff’s counsel in the In re Yasmin & Yaz Mktg. Sales Practices & Prod. Liab. Litig. We already know mass tort MDLs are a breeding ground for lax plaintiff-side representation. A handful of plaintiffs’ attorneys lead the charge, while the rest file their cases, and then lie in the weeds waiting for settlement. And in a system designed not to pay much attention to the individual cases, at least until the litigation is significantly advanced, missing due dates in an individual case also doesn’t garner much attention. That is until it does.
Today’s case isn’t about preemption, or expert opinions, or off-label use, or even about pleadings standards. What it is about is an individual plaintiff’s counsel being held accountable for not paying attention to MDL orders and for simply doing nothing. We’re just going to tell this one like it is, because we couldn’t even make up facts this absurd.
The individual case is Dzik v. Bayer Corp., 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 684 (7th Cir. Jan. 13, 2017). Plaintiff filed her suit alleging that she suffered a blood clot from her use of Yasmin, a birth control pill. Id. at *2. Discovery, however, revealed that plaintiff had not filled a Yasmin prescription for 10 months before her alleged injury. Plaintiff’s counsel suggested that plaintiff had been given samples shortly before her injury. In May 2014, defense counsel requested plaintiff produced additional medical records or even an affidavit from the prescribing doctor to substantiate use at the time of injury. Id. That requested was ignored for 15 months.
During those many months, defendant began settling the pending cases. As for non-settling plaintiffs the court entered an order (sometime in the summer of 2015) splitting them into two groups – those likely to settle and those likely not to. Pursuant to the order, if a plaintiff thought her case was likely to settle with a little more negotiation, plaintiff should so notify defendant and if defendant agreed, the case was stayed for 60-90 days to facilitate settlement. Id. at *3. For all other cases, defendant had to notify plaintiff that her case was in the non-settling group and if plaintiff didn’t timely object to that classification, plaintiff had 120 days to serve a Plaintiff Fact Sheet and certain pharmacy and medical records, and a report from an expert on causation. Id. If a plaintiff failed to comply, defendant could move for dismissal and dismissal with prejudice was automatic for any plaintiff who did not respond to the motion to dismiss within 14 days.
Even after having read it through twice, we find the result in Barron v. Abbott Laboratories, Inc., ___ S.W.3d ___, 2016 WL 6596091 (Mo. App. Nov. 8, 2016), hard to fathom, and even harder to stomach. For several years after starting the blog, one of our aphorisms was “nothing good ever comes out of Missouri.” Then legal developments caused us to retire that slogan. Now we may have to bring it back – maybe.
Barron affirmed a $48 million verdict – concerning birth defects – against the maker of a drug that had a black box warning – about birth defects
| [THE DRUG] CAN PRODUCE TERATOGENIC EFFECTS SUCH AS NEURAL TUBE DEFECTS (E.G., SPINA BIFIDA). ACCORDINGLY, THE USE OF [THE DRUG] IN WOMEN OF CHILDBEARING POTENTIAL REQUIRES THAT THE BENEFITS OF ITS USE BE WEIGHED AGAINST THE RISK OF INJURY TO THE FETUS. |
Barron, 2016 WL 6596091, at *1.
Astonishingly, this boxed warning, which only the FDA can mandate, was a sufficiently inadequate advisory that the drug could cause birth defects that a St. Louis (City) jury awarded $23 million in punitive damages to the plaintiff, who was from Minnesota.
And those two places – St. Louis City and Minnesota – are as much the problem as the “Show-Me-The-Money State” verdict itself. Barron is a poster child for venue and joinder run amok. First, the underlying action was filed by 24 plaintiffs from all over the country (13 different states), with nothing in common save claiming somewhat similar injuries to different persons from the same drug. Id. at *4. Of course, a couple of plaintiffs were from Missouri (and another presumably from the home state of a defendant), in order to defeat diversity. Id. at *2.
This post comes from the non-Reed Smith side of the blog.
We’ve been posting for a few months about the procedural and evidentiary controversies that have arisen in the Pinnacle Hip Implant MDL bellwether process. The second bellwether trial involved significant evidentiary and procedural rulings that raised eyebrows across the defense bar (discussed here and here). After that trial unsurprisingly produced a ½ billion dollar jury verdict, the defense asked the MDL Court to stay further bellwether trials so that the Fifth Circuit could review those rulings. No luck. Instead, the MDL Court ordered that the next bellwether trial should happen—and quickly (discussed here). After all that, and with the third bellwether trial approaching fast, the defense must feel like the coyote lying flat on the ground staring up at the bottom of a plummeting anvil coming at him a second time.
Undaunted, however, the defense has now filed a motion to continue the third bellwether trial, a motion that raises serious concerns about the time allotted to “work-up” the plaintiffs’ cases that will be involved in the trial. The defense argues that the allotted time is simply too short, not providing enough time for the complex medical issues underlying each plaintiff’s case to be developed and understood so that a trial can produce the type of verdicts that can advance the MDL process. To illustrate this, the defense compared the discovery and pre-trial periods that led up to the second bellwether trial (Aoki) to those leading up to this trial:
(Defense Br. at 9.)