Two New Jersey Pelvic Mesh Verdicts Overturned

While Covid-19 continues to be a dominant national topic, including with the recent approval of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, there are other developments of note for the life sciences industry. One of those came on March 2, 2021, when the New Jersey Appellate Division—New Jersey’s intermediate appellate court—I issued a lengthy opinion reversing two multi-million dollar verdicts in favor of plaintiffs in pelvic mesh product liability cases. (Actually, the court issued two lengthy opinions, a long published opinion and an even longer unpublished opinion…
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Potential Supreme Court Review of Another Punitive Damages Case

Much of the nation is understandably focused on the presidential election results, as well as the troubling rise in COVID-19 cases across the country. While questions of punitive damages are likely far from the minds of most everyone at the present, the Missouri Supreme Court rejected a bid from Johnson & Johnson (J&J) to review the $2.1 billion damages award rendered against it in favor of a group of women suing over alleged ovarian cancer risks. As readers may recall, the initial verdict against J&J…
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California Federal Court Permits Class Action Pet Food Lawsuit to Go Forward

A California Federal Court recently denied a motion filed by a pet food manufacturer (Defendant) to dismiss a proposed class action lawsuit centered around the alleged presence of heavy metals within the defendant’s pet food. The plaintiffs alleged that the defendant made actionable false, misleading, or otherwise deceptive statements regarding the nature and qualify of their pet food. The defendant is facing similar lawsuits in other jurisdictions, which focus on the presence of heavy metals within these pet food products. In these other lawsuits, cases…
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California Johnson & Johnson Talc Cancer Risk Verdict

By now, most readers know that recently, Johnson & Johnson (J&J) was ordered to pay $417 million to a woman from East Los Angeles who claimed that she developed terminal ovarian cancer from using J&J’s talc powder products. The verdict included $70 million in compensatory damages and $347 million in punitive damages. While this was the first such case to go to verdict against J&J in California — where hundreds of other similar cases are pending — this is not the first trial verdict nationally.…
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California Court of Appeals Rules Plaintiffs Can Pursue Claims Against Novartis for Alleged Damages Arising From Ingestion of Generic Drug Six Years After Novartis Divested its Interest

On March 9, 2016, the California Court of Appeals ruled that the plaintiffs’ claims of failure to warn and misrepresentation against Novartis were legally viable. The critical dispute raised by Novartis was that it did not manufacture the prescription medication that allegedly harmed the plaintiffs. In T. H. v. Novartis Pharms. Corp., No. D067839, 2016 Cal. App. LEXIS 179 (Ct. App. Mar. 9, 2016), two minor plaintiffs alleged that Novartis was liable for neurological injuries they sustained in utero after their mother was prescribed,…
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Recent Philadelphia Verdict Highlights Need to Combat Punitive Damages

In the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, a jury recently awarded the plaintiff $2.3 million in compensatory damages for injuries he alleged arose from his use of a diabetes treatment drug.  The plaintiff claimed that the drug company failed to properly warn that its use was linked to a higher incidence of bladder cancer, a condition he subsequently developed.  In addition to awarding a compensatory sum, the jury awarded $1.3 million in punitive damages, apparently based upon evidence that the company’s pharmaceutical reps were instructed…
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