Benicar, a popular blood pressure medication manufactured by Daiichi Sankyo and Forest Laboratories, has been the focus of a multidistrict litigation (MDL) for some time now. The Judicial Panel on Multi-district Litigation (JPML) issued the order granting multiple suits MDL status back in early 2015. However, it appears that the first Benicar MDL trials won’t happen until 2017. Daiichi is a Japanese company whose U.S. headquarters are located in Parsippany, NJ. Forest Labs was purchased in 2014 by Actavis.
Benicar, a popular blood pressure medication manufactured by Daiichi Sankyo and Forest Laboratories, has been the focus of a multidistrict litigation (MDL) for some time now. The Judicial Panel on Multi-district Litigation (JPML) issued the order granting multiple suits MDL status back in early 2015. However, it appears that the first Benicar MDL trials won’t happen until 2017. Daiichi is a Japanese company whose U.S. headquarters are located in Parsippany, NJ. Forest Labs was purchased in 2014 by Actavis.
U.S. District Judge Robert Kugler (Camden, NJ) issued Case Management Order 26 (CMO26) on May 11, 2016. In that order, the judge mandated the following schedule:
- Fact discovery must be finished by Friday, September 30, 2016;
- Expert reports & disclosures from plaintiffs are due by Wednesday, November 30, 2016;
- Expert reports & disclosures from defendants are due by Tuesday, January 31, 2017;
- Depositions of experts must be finished by Tuesday, February 28, 2017;
- Motions for summary judgment or Daubert motions must be filed by Friday, March 31, 2017.
The Daubert hearing, if needed, will be scheduled at a later date. Daubert hearings serve the purpose of deciding if scientific evidence/expert testimony is sufficient to warrant going to trial.
At issue is whether the manufacturers knew or should have known and failed to warn consumers that Benicar may cause severe gastro-intestinal problems, such as diarrhea (up to 10 or 20 incidents per day for some plaintiffs), extreme weight loss of up to 75 – 100 pounds, malnutrition and its comorbidities infections & cataracts, colitis and sprue-like enteropathy. A few uses have even died as a result of Benicar’s side-effects.
Judge Kugler randomly chose 30 bellwether cases. Bellwether trials are tools used when there are a large number of plaintiffs whose suits are rooted in the same claim or legal theory. The trials allow both sides and the court to see how the cases in the MDL may turn out. Depending on the outcome, the parties may find that settling is preferable to litigation. The bellwether cases may also be dismissed, which could indicate that the entire MDL is in danger of dismissal.
After the court’s selection, each side was permitted to remove 10 cases from the list. Obviously, the parties did not remove 10 cases each, because Judge Kugler randomly removed 20 cases at the end. There are a total of 10 bellwether cases awaiting trial. The judge has yet to choose the first case to be tried, according to plaintiffs’ attorney and state court liaison to the federal MDL, Rayna Kessler of Robins Kaplan in New York. All we know for sure is that the first bellwether trial will not happen until sometime in 2017, though all 10 cases are being prepped for trial. Again, according to Ms. Kessler, no date has been set for the first state court trial either.
There are currently 70 cases filed in state court in Atlantic County. These cases are being overseen by Superior Court Judge Nelson Johnson. The federal MDL had 1,347 cases as of June 16, 2016.
The wheels of justice may be moving slowly in the Benicar MDL, but at least they are moving.
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