Personal Injury Law

U.S. Supreme Court Now Considering Protecting Drug Manufacturers From Lawsuits

By Mark Siesel, Esq.

Following up on our blog "U.S. Supreme Court Deals Blow to Lawsuits Against Defective Products", the Court heard arguments on February 25 in Warner-Lambert v. Kent, to determine whether drug manufacturers should receive similar protection from lawsuits that the Court handed out to medical device makers earlier in February. Judge Breyer, normally one of the Court's most liberal justices, gave a strong indication that the Court is heading in the direction of protecting drug makers when he stated: "Who should make the decisions that will determine whether a drug is on balance, going to save people or, on balance, going to hurt people?... An expert agency, [The Food and Drug Administration] on the one hand or 12 people pulled randomly for a jury role who see before them only the people whom the drug hurt and don't see those who need the drug to cure them."

Seemingly forgetting about the thousands of injured victims of Vioxx, for example, who used a dangerous drug which had been approved by the F.D.A. and nevertheless suffered numerous deaths, heart attacks, and other complications, and without question needed the courts to redress their grievances, it appears that the Supreme Court is now ready to bar lawsuits against drug makers.

Full post as published by New York Legal Blog on March 10, 2008 (boomark / email).