Reports indicate that a potential mass tort litigation involving product liability in New Jersey may conclude without a single case tried to verdict and no disclosed resolutions wherein the plaintiffs recovered monetary compensation. Specifically, the issue at hand encompasses a multi-billion dollar nationwide series of cases involving women who were prescribed hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to treat menopausal symptoms that they claimed, in fact, led to cancer and other health issues.
According to a recent notice provided by the New Jersey State Judiciary, all active litigation related to this topic has been concluded. Although legal objections were allowed prior to February 13th, no known objections were brought by the end of January.
Notably, the trajectory of this litigation was quite different in New Jersey than in many other states. The HRT litigation was given a mass tort status in September of 2004 by the New Jersey Supreme Court, with the cases assigned to Atlantic County for adjudication and subsequently transferred to Middlesex. Although New Jersey is often referred to as “plaintiff-friendly” among members of the legal community, it was decidedly out-of-character with regard to rulings against a number of the arguments used to support suits against HRT-producing pharmaceutical companies.
One of the primary parties in this litigation has been the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, which acquired Wyeth Pharmaceuticals in 2009. Wyeth, which is headquartered in Madison, New Jersey, manufactures two of the main HRT drugs used among consumers: Premarin and Prempro. Pfizer reported payments totaling $1.7 billion in HRT-related litigation at the close of 2013, in addition to $25 million that was set aside for pending cases.
In a series of precedential cases in New Jersey, arguments including what is often termed “failure to warn,” as well as those accusing Wyeth of violating the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act, and common-law claims of fraudulent and negligent misrepresentation, did not succeed in convincing judges of the company’s wrongdoing.
If all of the HRT-related litigation is soon resolved, with any settlements remaining confidential, the existence and amounts of any payments made by pharmaceutical companies like Wyeth will remain unknown. However, one thing is for certain: our legal system’s concern for the safety of the consumer, and the legal avenues provided to allow for suits of this kind will ensure that product liability claims will continue to be a feature of New Jersey’s legal system.