Is Seroquel Shaping Up to Be the Mass Tort That Wasn't?
By David Bario
June 15, 2009
A pattern is forming in the ongoing product liability litigation over AstraZeneca's antipsychotic Seroquel, and it's not pretty for the plaintiffs. On June 9 a Delaware state court judge dismissed yet another Seroquel case--the third to be tossed--because the plaintiff couldn't establish through expert medical testimony that the drug played a role in her illnesses. The next day, a fourth Seroquel case in Delaware was dismissed at the plaintiff's request.The state court dismissals follow a pair of adverse rulings in the federal MDL over Seroquel, which thousands of plaintiffs allege to have caused them to develop diabetes or other health problems. As we've previously reported, in January, Orlando federal district court judge Anne Conway granted AstraZeneca summary judgment in the first Seroquel test case, on the grounds that diabetic Linda Guinn had not established a sufficient case for causation. In February, Judge Conway tossed the second test case (this one chosen by AstraZeneca), after plaintiff David Haller was similarly unable to make a convincing case for causation. An appeal in the Guinn case is pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
In the meantime, is it time to start asking whether the Seroquel litigation is another in a long line of disappointments for plaintiffs lawyers looking for a lucrative mass tort? In last week's opinion excluding plaintiff's expert testimony and granting AstraZeneca's summary judgment motion, Delaware superior court judge Joseph Slights was pretty discouraging about the future of the litigation. He noted that in every Seroquel case to proceed to a summary judgment ruling, a judge has struck the plaintiff's experts on Daubert grounds, leaving them unable to show a link between the drug and diabetes.
"The court is left to wonder what is to become of its docket of more than 700 Seroquel cases," Slights wrote. "Trial groups have been formed well into the future and the parties are expending significant resources to prepare for these trials....Under these circumstances, it is appropriate to wonder aloud."
Dechert is coordinating the Seroquel litigation for AstraZeneca, and partner Steven Weisburd argued the winning motions for the company in the Florida and Delaware cases. The company is also represented in Delaware by Michael Kelly of McCarter & English and Alston & Bird's Jane Thorpe. Delaware plaintiff Nina Scaife was represented by Linda Richenderfer of Klehr, Harrison, Harvey, Branzburg, & Ellers; Lawrence Gornick of Levin, Simes, Kaiser & Gornick; and Paul Pennock of Weitz & Luxenberg.
