Wyeth Settles Prempro Lawsuits
In mid-July, 2008, Wyeth settled lawsuits with two Nevada women who blamed their breast cancers on the company’s drug Prempro, which they took to relieve hot flashes and menopause symptoms. Vesta Woodhouse, 71, and Annie Woods, 61, are among millions of women who used Prempro as a hormone replacement therapy. Woodhouse took Prempro for 19 months before developing breast cancer. Woods took Premarin, Provera, and Prempo for about 5 years before developing breast cancer. Their lawsuits claimed that Wyeth failed to warn them about breast cancer risks. Wyeth settled with both women for an undisclosed amount.
Judge Rules Against Wyeth
New Jersey Superior Court judge, Bryan Garruto, in June 2008, issued a pre-trial rulng that a federal law does not bar state product liability lawsuits against drug makers. The ruling is the third by state and federal judges finding that lawsuits alleging drug companies did not adequately warn about a product’s dangers are not pre-empted by the US Food and Cosmetics Act. In other words, the law gives the 50 states, not the FDA pre-emption in matters pertaining to the safety of drugs.
The ruling allowed plaintiff Ellen Deutsch’s lawsuit to proceed. Deutsch, in her early 60s, took Prempro from 1996 to 2002 along with an older Wyeth menopause drug, Premarin. Deutsch alleges that the drugs caused her breast cancer. This is the first Prempro case to reach the courts in New Jersey, and was set to go to trial in July, 2008, the first of 250 trials pending in the state and one of 10,000 filed nationwide.
Wyeth Pays Big
In March 2008, Wyeth and Pfizer Inc. were ordered to pay an Arkansas woman $27.1 million in punitive damages. The Arkansas jury found that Wyeth’s Prempro and Pfizer’s Provera had caused the plaintiff to develop breast cancer, and further determined that the companies had shown reckless disregard for the health risks posed by their HRT drugs and should be punished. Wyeth’s share of the punitive damages came to $19.3 million.
Judge Reduces Jury Verdict
In February 2008, a district court judge in Nevada reduced a jury award against Wyeth from $134 million to $58 million. The damages included both compensatory and punitive damages based on the theory that the drugs Premarin and Prempro caused the plaintiff’s breast cancer. The judge was concerned that the amounts represented “the result of passion and prejudice.” The judgment was the largest award to date against Wyeth, which faces about 5,300 similar lawsuits across the country involving the drugs Premarin, an estrogen replacement, and Prempro, a combination of estrogen and progestin.
Summary Judgment for Wyeth
A judge in Minnesota dismissed a product liability lawsuit against Wyeth, granting the drugmaker’s motion for summary judgment in a case in which a woman blamed the company’s hormone replacement therapy for her breast cancer. In dismissing the case, which had been scheduled to go to trial in January 2008, Judge George McGunnigle of the Hennepin County District Court in Minneapolis found that the plaintiff, Patricia Zandi, had not offered any scientifically valid evidence to support her claim that she had developed breast cancer as a result of using Wyeth’s Premarin and Prempro.
Wyeth Loses Prempro Trial
A jury found that Prempro caused the plaintiff’s breast cancer and awarded Jennie Nelson and her husband $3 million, in a retrial of a Philadelphia HRT case. Wyeth indicated it would appeal.
In a prior Philadelphia trial, a jury also found in favor of the plaintiff, Jennie Nelson, but the judge threw out the verdict and declared a mistrial due to “extraneous circumstances” related to misconduct of a juror. The original jury awarded Nelson and her husband $1.5 million in compensatory damages. This time, Nelson was awarded $2.4 million and her husband $600,000, for a total of $3 million.
Mistrial in Prempro Case
In Jennie Nelson v. Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, the judge declared a mistrial and ordered a new trial, overturning a verdict against Wyeth. An attorney for the plaintiff stated that the mistrial was due to “extraneous circumstances,” but gave no details because the judge’s order was under seal.
The Nelson trial had been divided into two phases, with the first phase addressing causation and compensatory damages and the second liability and punitive damages. The jury concluded, at the end of phase one, that Prempro was the cause of the plaintiff’s breast cancer. The amount of compensatory damages awarded was $1 million for Nelson and $500,000 for her husband. The punitive damages phase was scheduled to begin the following day.
Texas Case Dismissed
A Texas judge dismissed a hormone replacement therapy case that was on the verge of going to trial, brought by a woman who claimed she developed breast cancer as a result of taking Prempro. The judge, Caroline E. Baker of Houston, said the woman couldn’t accuse Wyeth of failing to warn about risks associated with Prempro because drug labels are regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, according to a Wyeth statement. Wyeth lawyers have said the company did what the FDA told them to do.
Judge Denies Punitive Damages
In the Prempro trial of Mary Daniel v. Wyeth, the jury rendered a verdict for the plaintiff for $1.5 million in compensatory damages and found a basis to move to a punitive damages phase, but today the judge ruled, as a matter of law, that the evidence was insufficient to hold Wyeth liable for punitive damages. However, the judge apparently has decided to allow the jury to hear the evidence on punitive damages and to render a verdict — under seal — in case her ruling is reversed on appeal. The punitive damage award will not be made public unless an appeals court overturns the judge’s ruling.
Previously, a jury found that Wyeth failed to properly warn about the cancer risks associated with Prempro, and that the drug was responsible for plaintiff Mary Daniel’s breast cancer. It awarded Daniel and her husband $1.5 million in compensatory damages. The jury also found that Wyeth’s conduct was malicious or showed reckless indifference, a finding that under Pennsylvania law could send the jury back to determine additional punitive damages to be paid by the New Jersey-based company.
The jury was expected to return in a matter of days to decide punitive damages, finding Wyeth’s conduct to be “malicious, wanton, willful, oppressive or showing reckless indifference to the interest of others,” in failing to provide adequate warnings about Prempro and breast cancer risk.
You must log in to post a comment.