Seroquel Cases May be Headed Back to State Courts for Trials
Thousands of lawsuits which had been filed by people who developed diabetes after taking the antipsychotic drug Seroquel and consolidated for pre-trial hearings before the same federal judge may be heading back to courts in their home states for trials.
U.S. District Judge Anne Conway, who is presiding over pre-trial hearings for about 6,000 Seroquel lawsuits centralized in her Orlando, Florida courtroom, said this week she wants the cases returned to courts in the states where they were filed.
Thousands of lawsuits against Seroquel’s maker AstraZeneca PLC were merged in what is called a Multidistrict Litigation (MDL) panel. When lawsuits making similar allegations against a common defendant are filed in federal district courts in multiple states, federal officials may centralize the cases in one courtroom to encourage fair, speedy, and more cost-effective resolution. Lawsuits that cannot be resolved at the MDL stage are eventually returned to the district courts in the states where they were filed for trials.
Blockbuster Drug: Seroquel
Seroquel has been a blockbuster drug for AstraZeneca, earning the company $4.45 billion in sales in 2008, Bloomberg.com reports. However, the company recently disclosed in a regulatory filing that it has spent $623 million in “legal defense costs” associated with the Seroquel lawsuits.
Also, the company recently agreed to pay a $520 million fine for illegally marketing Seroquel.
Thousands of Seroquel Suits May be Reassigned
Conway, who took over the Seroquel MDL assignment in 2006, indicated in court this week that she will ask the MDL panel to return the cases to their home states for trials, according to a Bloomberg.com news report.
AstraZeneca faces more than 14,000 lawsuits filed in both state and federal courts across the United States. Nearly half of those are federal cases that had been centralized under Conway as part of the MDL proceedings.
Attorneys for AstraZeneca and the plaintiffs had asked the judge to return just a few cases to their home states of California, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Ohio for trials. The thinking was that the outcome of those “test cases” could help shape the future of Seroquel litigation, court watchers said.
Plaintiff’s attorney Paul Pennock said the judge’s recent ruling “will get the litigation moving” and “help get a huge group of cases to a state of trial-worthiness,” according to Bloomberg.com.
Related posts:
- Yaz Injury Lawsuits Could Top 25,000 Cases More than 25,000 lawsuits could be filed across the United...
- Prempro Injury Lawsuits Reinstated in Minn. Courts More than 100 lawsuits filed on behalf of women who...
- AstraZeneca Will Pay $520 Million for Illegal Marketing of Seroquel AstraZeneca, the drug company behind the blockbuster psychiatric drug Seroquel,...
- Texas Lawsuit Blames Antipsychotic Seroquel for Woman’s Diabetes Taking Seroquel to treat a mental disorder caused a Texas...
- Zicam Lawsuits May be Lumped Together Before Trials About a dozen personal-injury lawsuits filed against the makers of...
