Articles Posted in Class Actions

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Federal District Court Judge Hon. David R. Herndon of the Southern District of Illinois has ordered that Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (BIPI) pay $1 million in sanctions for discovery abuses in the multidistrict litigation (MDL) involving the oral anticoagulant Predaxa. This same U.S. Federal District Court, also in the Southern District of Illinois, is where many of the country’s  Yasmin and YAZ (Drospirenone)  birth control injury cases are being handled; also in an MDL.

Judge Herndon found that BIPI, the maker of Predaxa, had chosen not to produce thousands of documents to the plaintiffs, which the judge determined was bad-faith conduct. 

According to the order, BIPI and its German parent company were unable to explain why it chose not to produce critical documents and communications by a deadline set by the judge. The deadline was in June 2012. 

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The Pennsylvania State Supreme Court has dismissed appeals by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals in its attempt to reverse a jury verdict of $8.6 million, which included a very sizable sum for punitive damages. A lawsuit originated in a claim against Wyeth as to its menopause drug, Prempro, which has been associated with women developing breast cancer.  Wyeth had asked the state’s Supreme Court to overturn the September 2013 punitive damages verdict. Wyeth argued that the verdict should be invalidated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) earlier approval of the drug for safe use. 

Wyeth maintained that the appellate court had erred in reinstating the jury verdict that was entered by a Philadelphia jury in 2007 for Mary Daniel, who claimed that the Prempro menopause drug caused her breast cancer. 

Following that jury verdict, the punitive damages were tacked onto a compensatory damage award of $1.7 million.  Ms. Daniel and her husband were the plaintiffs in the case. 

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A confidential settlement agreement was reached just two weeks before the start of a bellwether case in a coordinated litigation in California regarding hip implants. The terms of the settlement agreement were not revealed. 

The trial had been scheduled to begin in the middle of October 2013.  The next bellwether trial is set to begin in January 2014 in Los Angeles.  Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiary, DePuy Orthopaedics Inc., face thousands of lawsuits at the federal and state levels regarding the ASR implants. 

In March 2013, a Los Angeles jury returned a verdict of $8.3 million in damages to a retired prison guard who claimed that he was injured by the device. This was the first such trial against the orthopedic company.

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Hubert Walker represented a class of truck owner-operators who sued Trailer Transit Inc., a broker of trucking services, for breach of contract. The lawsuit was filed in an Indiana state court. The underlying lawsuit concerned a lease agreement between Walker, who owned and operated a long-haul truck and trailer transit. Under the contract, Trailer Transit leased Walker’s equipment and Walker picked up and delivered shipments arranged by Trailer Transit. 

The parties’ agreement required Trailer Transit to pay Walker 71% of the gross revenues derived from the use of the truck, less all items intended to reimburse trailer transit for special services.

Walker alleged in his complaint that Trailer Transit violated the lease agreement with him and hundreds of other truckers by charging “add-on fees” to customers that exceeded the costs of special services. Because the overcharge fees were not intended to be reimbursed to Trailer Transit, Walker maintained that the truckers were entitled to a portion of those fees under the lease agreement. The complaint alleged that the truckers would be entitled to 71% of the overcharge.

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A class action lawsuit has been filed against Travelers Insurance Co. alleging that it misled injured individuals in car accident cases against Travelers’ insureds.  The case, filed in the Chancery Division of the Circuit Court of Cook County by Sabrina Roppo, alleges that when she was injured in a car accident with a Travelers’ insured. Dhe was advised that the policy of insurance provided to the wrongdoer was $500,000. 

However, it was discovered that there was an additional $1 million umbrella policy that Roppo alleges was not disclosed to her by Travelers. According to the lawsuit, even though the Travelers’ insured paid a premium for the $1 million umbrella coverage, the company chose not to disclose that the umbrella policy was available. 

The lawsuit contends that Roppos suffered additional financial losses because of the misrepresentation. The lawsuit also states that about 500 other individuals injured by Travelers’ insureds were affected by this practice dating back to 1988. The suit seeks compensatory and punitive damages.

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