Anatomy of a Lawsuit

Anatomy of a Lawsuit

Many of our clients understandably ask about the process of filing their drug case. We hear many questions repeatedly: How does my drug case work? How long does it take to file my drug case? How long before I see some money or some results?

The basic procedure works this way. Once companies receive copies of our petition informing them that we have filed a lawsuit, they have approximately 20 days to answer.  Their response is typically in a form that basically says, “We didn’t do it.  Prove it, if you can.”

The next step in the process is called discovery.  This is the time given us by the court to investigate and develop the case.  Discovery can  last from six to twelve months or longer, depending on the scope of the litigation.

One of the first steps in discovery requires  a plaintiff to answer many written questions (interrogatories) and provide several documents relevant to the lawsuit, through a formal request for production. Once we receive the interrogatories and request(s) for production of documents, we contact the plaintiff to help answer the questions and locate the relevant documents.  We  then type everything and submit the final document  to  defense.

As part of the discovery process, the plaintiff and many other key witnesses and experts will also be interviewed in person and under oath by lawyers for the defendants.  This interview under oath is called a deposition.  During the deposition, a plaintiff will be asked many of the same questions previously answered in writing, and also some new questions.

Once discovery is complete, if the Court has not yet assigned a trial date, we request one.  Prior to trial, the court may require we participate in a dispute resolution process called mediation.  If a case is not settled during mediation, we move forward to trial preparation. Though we typically handle  many of cases at one time, we work every case with the assumption that it will go to trial. The litigation process  in a drug case typically takes between two and five years, depending on many factors; but it can take longer, as with the Accutane litigation which still continues after more than seven years.

Anyone with questions is urged to contact us at 508-499-3366.

Judge overturns $6.5 Million Verdict

Judge overturns $6.5 Million Verdict

It’s a wonder we even bother to hold trials anymore. In the latest miscarriage of justice, a California judge overturned the verdict of a six-week jury trial by accepting defense arguments that an expert whom the jury had seen interrogated in court was not qualified to determine that Actos had caused plaintiff Jack  Cooper’s bladder cancer.

On May 1, Judge Kenneth Freeman overturned $6.5 million dollar jury verdict (entered on April 26) for plaintiff Jack Cooper in Cooper vs. Takeda  (Cooper v. Takeda Pharmaceuticals America Inc., CGC-12-518535, California Superior Court, Los Angeles). Freeman granted two key Takeda’s motions which lead to his reversal.

Freeman granted Takeda’s motion to exclude the opinions of Dr. Norm Smith, the plaintiff’s causation expert who had hypothesized that Actos was a substantial causal factor in Mr. Cooper’s bladder cancer.  Granting that motion meant that no opinion supported the cancer causation finding; so the judge then granted Takeda’s motion for non suit, which threw out the verdict.

Judge Freeman dismissed Dr. Smith’s work thusly:

“[I]t is evident to the Court that the matter in which Dr. Smith conducted his differential diagnosis is based on speculation, is not reliable, not done with intellectual rigor expected of an expert, and is therefore inadmissible under prevailing California law.”

Absent Dr. Smith’s opinion that Actos specifically caused Mr. Cooper’s bladder cancer, there was no other evidence, according to Judge Freeman, to support the jury’s verdict against Takeda; therefore Freeman granted a non suit.

Mr. Cooper’s lawyers will appeal Freeman’s decision to an appellate court. One can only wonder how Judge Freeman could dismiss the jury verdict on an apparent technicality.  The jury had six weeks to look at all the evidence, to hear the qualifications and the testimony of Dr. Norm Smith, and to hear him cross examined for hours by Takeda defense lawyers. The jury also heard all the testimony of all the experts hired by Takeda. The jury then decided, and then Judge Freeman decided the jury couldn’t be entrusted to do the job they were chosen to do. What’s the point of having a jury trial at all if the jury’s decision can be so easily dismissed by a judge?

What is this whole decision if not complete contempt for the entire jury system? If you want to ask what’s wrong in this country, you might start by asking why it’s ok for a judge to categorically dismiss the work of an impaneled jury who have heard six weeks of testimony from both sides.