In the first test case to go to trial over side effects from Levaquin, Johnson & Johnson’s popular and powerful antibiotic, a federal jury has awarded more than $1.8 million to a Minnesota octogenarian who claims the drug caused his Achilles tendons to rupture.
The jury’s award of $700,000 in compensatory damages and $1.15 in punitive damages to plaintiff John Schedin is sure to reverberate nationwide, because it was the first of several bellwether cases to go to trial from a pool of more than 2,600 cases pending in state and federal courts.
