Legal News

High Court Delivers Blow to Vaccine Litigation

By Ashby Jones

In 1986, Congress passed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, which created a national compensation program for vaccine-injury claims. Along the way, the law largely shielded vaccine-makers from liability for design defects.

But did the 1986 law strip plaintiffs of their right to sue drug companies in state court?

Yes it did, ruled the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday.

In a 6-2 ruling (Justice Elena Kagan sat this one out), the court barred a suit brought by a Pennsylvania couple who alleged that their daughter suffered profound impairments after receiving a diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine made by Wyeth, now part of Pfizer Inc. Click here for the WSJ story; here for the Bloomberg story; here for the opinion.

The result takes a key legal tool out of the hands of those who contend their children’s autism was caused by vaccines.

Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the court, said the vaccine law “pre-empts all design-defect claims against vaccine manufacturers brought by plaintiffs who seek compensation for injury or death caused by vaccine side effects.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, dissented, saying the ruling "leaves a regulatory vacuum in which no one ensures that vaccine manufacturers adequately take account of scientific and technological advancements when designing or distributing their products."

The plaintiffs’ daughter, Hannah Bruesewitz, received the vaccine in 1992 at the age of six months. Now a teenager, she will need care for the rest of her life.

The special vaccine court created by the 1986 law, the Court of Federal Claims, rejected the parents’ bid for compensation, saying they hadn’t proved that the vaccine had caused the injuries.

Wyeth denied that its vaccine caused the child’s injuries and warned that a flood of vaccine lawsuits at the state level would threaten the supply of childhood vaccines. The company discontinued the vaccine at issue in 1998.

The vaccine law “appropriately places the responsibility for determining the optimal design of life-saving childhood vaccines in the hands of expert federal agencies, not a patchwork of state tort systems,” Pfizer’s general counsel, Amy Schulman, said in a statement that applauded the court’s ruling.

Peter H. Meyers, director of George Washington University Law School’s Vaccine Injury Clinic, said the ruling largely eliminates the right of those who suffer vaccine injuries to bring lawsuits in civil court. “They really will have one essential chance for compensation: the vaccine court,” he said.

Plaintiffs, however, can still sue over some issues not having to do with vaccine design, such as shoddy manufacturing.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on February 22, 2011 (boomark / email).