Personal Injury Law

NuvaRing Lawsuits: Specific Causation in Drug and Medical Device Cases

Last month, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPMDL) created MDL for the 11 NuvaRing lawsuits pending in federal court. Discovery for federal NuvaRing lawsuits ? both pending and future - will be centralized for discovery purposes in the Eastern District of Missouri before Judge Rodney W. Sippel. More NuvaRing lawsuits are pending in New Jersey after plaintiffs defeated defendants? efforts to remove all NuvaRing lawsuits to federal court. (Read more on New Jersey NuvaRing lawsuits.)

These NuvaRing lawsuits involve blood clot-related injuries to women such as pulmonary embolisms, strokes, heart attacks, and deep vein thrombosis (DVT). Because NuvaRing is a birth control device, many of these injuries are occurring in young woman who are rarely at risk for non pharmacological induced blood clots.

The challenge many products liability lawyers face in drug and medical device injury cases is that the patient population using the drug or device is more likely to suffer from the injury allegedly caused by the drug. Many patients on Seroquel, for example, are more likely to have diabetes because Seroquel is often prescribed for older patients (Seroquel is ubitiquous in many nursing homes). These patients are more likely to have diabetes than the general population. So while a plaintiffs? lawyer might be able to show that Seroquel causes diabetes, it might be a struggle to show that Seroquel caused diabetes in that particular patient.

The Prozac suicide cases are an even better example. Eli Lilly argues that many on Prozac are more likely to commit suicide with or without the Prozac so we should not be surprised that patients on Prozac might commit suicide in greater numbers than the patient population. With respect to specific causation, the reason the patient was put on Prozac in the first place is claimed ? sometimes for good reason ? as the real etiology of the suicide.

Many of the NuvaRing cases are not going to have difficulty specifying causation problems because women who are on birth control are generally ? although obviously not always ? relatively young. Plaintiffs? lawyers handling NuvaRing cases are going to have an easier time proving specific causation if general causation is established.

Full post as published by Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog on September 18, 2008 (boomark / email).