When we were on a jury last month we were warned not to consult any outside sources. And we didn’t. When we were in high school last century and studied the works of Eliot, Lawrence, Joyce, Waugh, and (another) Eliot, we were instructed not to consider extraneous issues, such as biography or social conditions. Our
We are beginning to feel like the Drug and Device Law theatre critic. Or perhaps we should say “theatre cheerleader,” as we rarely wax critical (at least about the stuff we include in our blog posts). Last week, we saw the wonderful new musical Come From Away. It is a true story, and it begins
One of the (many) things that made last year’s decision in Barron v. Abbott Laboratories, Inc., ___ S.W.3d ___, 2016 WL 6596091 (Mo. App. Nov. 8, 2016), so hideous that it weighed in at #3 of our worst decisions of the year was that, virtually without discussion, it held that an FDA-approved black box
We’ve often thought that tort reform should be a major goal of those interested in preserving women’s reproductive choice. Every prescription medicine has risks, which is why the FDA requires a prescription in the first place, and prescription contraceptives are no exception. But ever since the very first birth control pills, back in the 1960s, the other side of the “v.” has consistently attacked every innovation in contraceptive technology and attempted to drive it off the market. It’s happened over and over again – with IUDs, Norplant, OrthoEvra, Yasmin, NuvaRing, Mirena, Essure. Except for the Dalkon Shield IUD forty years ago (and occasional idiosyncratic manufacturing errors), all these products were (or are being) ultimately vindicated, and the FDA continues to consider their designs to be both safe and effective. Unfortunately their users have had to pay a significant tort tax in order to continue exercising their personal choice of contraceptive method.
Niedner v. Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical, Inc., ___ N.E.3d ___, 2016 WL 5106479 (Mass. App. Sept. 21, 2016), is both an example of the plaintiff’s bar’s ongoing attempt to deprive women of reproductive choice and an exemplar of how to beat such efforts. Niedner involved a time-release contraceptive patch:
The patch prevents pregnancy by transferring synthetic forms of the hormones estrogen and progestin through the skin. Unlike oral birth control pills, which must be taken at the same time each day, the patch is applied to the skin once per week for three weeks, followed by a fourth patch-free week.
Id. at *1. The decedent decided to use this product in preference to both condoms and daily birth control pills. Id.
Risks.
It is a well-known scientific fact that any hormonal contraceptive places its user at an increased risk of stroke, myocardial infarction, and blood clots generally. This product was no exception:
[The prescribing physician] informed [the decedent minor and her mother] of the risks associated with using the patch, including that all hormonal contraceptives come with a risk of suffering blood clots. When the prescription was filled by [the] pharmacy, the package included an insert prepared by . . . the manufacturer[], as well as a leaflet from the pharmacy, both of which set forth the risks associated with use of the patch, including the risks of stroke, heart attack, and blood clots.
Id. Unfortunately, after three months use the decedent suffered a fatal “massive bilateral pulmonary embolus.” Id.
Continue Reading Massachusetts Rebuffs Latest Plaintiff Attack on Reproductive Choice
Anyone who has checked our post-Levine innovator drug & vaccine cheat sheet lately has no doubt noticed our two most recent entries, Gentile v. Biogen Idec, Inc., 2016 WL 4128159 (Mass. Super. July 25, 2016), and Christison v. Biogen Idec Inc., No. 2:11-CV-01140-DN-DBP, slip op. (D. Utah Aug. 5, 2016). With respect to preemption and innovator drug warnings, these cases provide further support to an emerging, common-sense bright line in the otherwise all-too-murky world of “clear evidence” – that a warning change rejected by the FDA for lack of scientific evidence must be “clear evidence” that this change would have also been rejected at any earlier date. The logic is inescapable that, if there was insufficient scientific evidence at moment X, there is no more, and usually less, evidence on the same issue at any time before X.
Looking at our cheat sheet, the first case to so hold appears to be In re Fosamax (Alendronate Sodium) Products Liability Litigation, 951 F. Supp.2d 695 (D.N.J. 2013). Fosamax involved the FDA’s partial rejection of a prior approval supplement after the date of the plaintiff’s injury. Id. at 703 (FDA rejection occurred “approximately one month after” plaintiff’s injury). The label change failed because “the data that FDA has reviewed have not shown a clear connection” between the drug and the risk at issue. Id. at 699.
[C]lear evidence exists that the FDA would not have approved a label change to the Precautions section of the [drug] label prior to [plaintiff’s] fracture because Defendant submitted a label change and the FDA rejected it, and the FDA never required Defendant to submit new language or change the label, which demonstrates that the FDA did not think that the label should have been changed at that time.
Id. at 703-04. See In re Fosamax Alendronate Sodium Products Liability Litigation, 2014 WL 1266994, at *11 (D.N.J. March 26, 2014) (applying this ruling “to those Plaintiffs’ whose injuries occurred prior to [the FDA rejection date], without allowing additional discovery”).Continue Reading Two Favorable Tysabri Rulings Add Clarity to “Clear Evidence” Preemption Standard – and More
We were not able to make our annual pilgrimage to the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show this year, so we had to settle for watching the televised portions on the couch with the Drug and Device Law Rescued Ragamuffins. And the cat. (We mostly resisted the all-day live feed of the breed judging.) Since the Best in Show lineup didn’t include a Standard Poodle, our “breed of the heart” (a cute Bulldog named Annabelle beat Ricky, the stunning black Standard Poodle, in the Nonsporting Group), and being nothing if not bandwagon jumpers, we were rooting for “Rumor” a gorgeous German Shepherd who was the top winning show dog of 2015 by many, many points. And she showed beautifully. But she was defeated by “C.J.,” a German Shorthaired Pointer. While we don’t count ourselves as sporting breed fanciers, C.J. is a cool dog. And, most interestingly (maybe not, but it gives us a hook to transition to our case in a minute), C. J.’s grandmother, Carlee, was Best in Show in 2005. Carlee was known for her flawless “free stack” – instead of needing her handler to place her feet in the right positions and stretch out her neck – “stack” her – for the judge’s examination, she did it all by herself in the most striking of fashions. Westminster trivia: like the Adamses and the Bushes, Westminster can count one example of a father siring his eventual successor: Robert, the English Springer Spaniel, was Best in Show in 1993. His daughter, Samantha, “took the Garden” seven years later. The ostensible point of dog shows is to reward the best specimens of each breed so they will pass their genes to future generations, so it is neat when a judge’s good decision is affirmed.
And so it was recently in the Third Circuit. In In re Avandia Marketing, Sales Practices and Products Liability Litigation (Linda and John Schatz, appellants), — Fed. Appx, –, 2016 WL 574074 (3d Cir. Feb. 12, 2016) (applying Pennsylvania law), the panel considered Judge Cynthia Rufe’s grant of summary judgment to the defendant manufacturer in a case in the Avandia MDL. The plaintiff, who had taken Avandia, sustained bone fractures in two accidents and alleged that the manufacturer had failed to adequately warn of the risk of such fractures. The manufacturer had informed doctors of this risk and, shortly thereafter, updated its warnings to include this information. While it was not clear whether the plaintiff had already stopped taking the drug at this time, it was undisputed that she resumed taking it for a short time after the “bone fractures” warning was added to the label.Continue Reading Solid Affirmances: Avandia Summary Judgment, and Westminster
Sometimes it takes an outsider to point out something that should be blindly obvious. In this case, that role was performed by a couple of our colleagues earlier this month at the annual ACI Drug and Medical Device Litigation Conference. They both told us how useful they found the new – adopted in 2015 − Pennsylvania Suggested Standard (Civil) Jury Instructions (“Pa. SSJI Civ.”) on the learned intermediary rule in prescription drug and medical device litigation. So we thought we’d introduce them to you. Here they are:
23.00 (Civ) Duty to Warn − Reasonable Care
In the case of prescription [drugs] [medical devices], the manufacturer has an obligation to exercise reasonable care to inform the plaintiff’s prescribing physician about the risks of its product. Such a manufacturer has a duty to warn about risks of its products that are not generally known, if the manufacturer knew or reasonably should have known about the risks of its product.
23.10 (Civ) Duty to Warn Physicians, Not Patients − Learned Intermediary Rule
A drug or medical device manufacturer only has a duty to warn the [prescribing] [implanting] physician about the dangers of its [drugs] [medical devices].
It does not have a duty to warn patients directly.
If you find that the defendant adequately warned the plaintiff’s [prescribing] [implanting] physician, even if the physician did not transmit that information to the plaintiff, you must find for the defendant on the failure-to-warn claim.
23.20 (Civ) Different Warning
The plaintiff has the burden of proving both of the following:
23.30 (Civ) Physician’s Knowledge − Other Sources
A pharmaceutical or medical device manufacturer that fails to adequately warn the [prescribing] [implanting] physician about the risks of its [drug] [medical device] is not liable if the physician was aware of the risks from medical literature or other reliable sources.
If you find that the plaintiff’s [prescribing] [implanting] physician already knew about the risks of the defendant’s [drug] [medical device] when he or she decided to [prescribe] [implant] it [to] [in] the plaintiff, then you must find for the defendant on the negligent failure-to-warn claim.Continue Reading Introducing the New Pennsylvania Learned Intermediary Jury Instructions
This post comes from the Cozen O’Connor side of the blog, not the Reed Smith side.
Last July, in the Tapia v. Davol, Inc. hernia patch case, Davol won its motion to dismiss the plaintiff’s failure to warn claim. 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 98521 at *16-17 (S.D. Cal. July 28, 2015). The court was clear on why. While plaintiff alleged facts on what was supposedly missing from the warnings, he alleged no facts suggesting that his own doctor didn’t receive a warning or that, if he had, he would not have prescribed the patch to plaintiff. In other words, plaintiff did not allege facts to suggest proximate causation. The court was explicit:
As to Defendant’s second argument regarding causation, while Plaintiff alleges the specific defect in Defendants’ product and specific warnings they failed to provide, he does not allege that Defendants failed to warn his own prescribing physician and that his own physician would not have used the Patch if warnings had been given.
Id. at *16-17. Allegations about “‘physicians’ in general and the ‘healthcare community’” didn’t provide facts to suggest the existence of proximate causation. Plaintiff needed to allege “facts as to his own prescribing physician.” Id. at *17.Continue Reading How Easy Is It to Allege Proximate Causation in a Medical Device Case
Warning: You have heard all this before.
Still reading? Okay. But please don’t tell us later that our warning was inadequate and that you would have clicked over to Scotus or Grantland or TMZ if we had been more forthcoming. As we have mentioned/kvetched what seems like 2814 times before (according to Blogger, that is how many posts we have put up — you’re welcome), most of the drug and device cases we encounter center around an allegation of failure to warn. And most of those cases are weak and/or incoherent. Yet most of those cases cost our clients a lot of money, if only because of the dysfunctional, asymmetrical meat-grinder called “discovery”.
Instead of ushering nuisance cases to the exit, too many courts are too inclined to find a purported issue of fact as to whether a warning is inadequate or whether a better warning would have made a difference. Again, we’ve said it before and will doubtless say it again in the face of judicial obstinacy or lassitude, but courts should insist that plaintiffs state exactly what the warning should have been and show that such a warning would have prompted the doctor to make a different prescribing decision.Continue Reading Lack of Warning Causation Dooms Aredia-Zometa Case
Today’s case gives us a lesson and a laugh. The lesson is that a court can be persuaded to prevent enterprising plaintiff lawyers from turning warning adequacy and the learned intermediary rule into not-so-funny jokes. The laugh comes from watching plaintiff lawyers invoke preemption [!] to keep frail claims alive. The case is Small v. Amgen, Inc., et al., Case No. 2:12-cv-476 (M.D. Florida Sept. 25, 2015). You can read the slip opinion here. The plaintiff claimed that Enbrel, which she was taking to treat her rheumatoid arthritis, eventually caused her to suffer from a diverticulitis infection. Before we get to the matters at hand in this opinion, we learn that the court had earlier dismissed claims for negligence per se and negligent failure to test or inspect. That’s a nice start. [These earlier decisions in the Small case were mentioned here and here.] Now the defendants moved for summary judgment on the remaining claims, arguing that they were barred by the learned intermediary doctrine.
The Small case looks like it should be a big problem for the plaintiff, since the Enbrel package insert identified infections as a primary risk. The defendants also distributed an FDA-approved medication guide that warned patients of the risk of serious infection. Moreover, before starting her Enbrel treatment, the plaintiff was given a consent form that warned of “life-threatening infections.” The plaintiff attempted to vault past these inconvenient facts by pointing out that there were no warnings that Enbrel could cause “asymptomatic serious infections,” and that the defendants failed to school doctors and patients “on how to mitigate and manage the risks associates with the use of Enbrel.” None of that should matter, because the treating doctor was very knowledgeable and testified that any of this new information would not have changed her mind about prescribing Enbrel. Under the learned intermediary rule (Florida is not one of those screwy states that abrogated the learned intermediary rule or cobbled together a silly exception), the failure to warn claims should fail.Continue Reading M.D. Fla. Shuts Down Attempted End-Run Around Learned Intermediary in Enbrel Case