Citing Ashcroft v. Iqbal, Florida Judge Dismisses Seroquel False Marketing Suit
By Andrew Longstreth
July 21, 2009
On Monday, New York Times Supreme Court writer Adam Liptak called Ashcroft v. Iqbal the most consequential decision of the high court's last term. Although the case involved the rights of a detainee swept up in the Bush administration's war on terror, the Court's ruling imposed a heavy burden on plaintiffs to be specific in their initial complaints. And just in the last two months, Liptak noted, the decision has been cited more than 500 times, often by judges dismissing civil suits in which plaintiffs didn't meet the Iqbal pleading standard. (Devoted Lit Daily readers may remember that we predicted this fallout back in May, when Scott Musoff of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom told us the Iqbal ruling would make it tougher for securities class actions plaintiffs to ward off motions to dismiss.)Now Iqbal has struck in the sprawling multidistrict litigation over the antipsychotic Seroquel. In a decision made public Monday, Judge Anne Conway of the Middle District of Florida dismissed a false marketing suit brought by the Pennsylvania Employees Benefit Trust Fund against Seroquel's manufacturer, AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals. The fund had alleged that it spent millions of dollars in unwarranted reimbursements because AstraZeneca promoted Seroquel for unapproved uses. (These are different claims than those made by the hundreds of personal injury plaintiffs who've sued AstraZeneca in litigation we've chronicled here and here, but all the federal cases are in the same MDL, which is overseen by Judge Conway.)
In finding that some of the allegations in the Pennsylvania fund’s complaint lacked specificity, Judge Conway cited the Iqbal ruling, in which the Supreme Court, as she noted, clarified that "naked assertions" without "further factual enhancement" are not sufficient to withstand a motion to dismiss.
AstraZeneca is represented in the false marketing case by Gordon Cooney and Brian Shaffer of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius; Shane Prince of Dechert; and Robert Ciotti of Carlton Fields. The fund is represented by solo practitioner Larry Roth; Stewart Cohen and William Marvin of Cohen, Placitella & Roth; and Michael Perrin and Fletcher Trammell of Bailey, Perrin & Bailey. Our calls to the plaintiffs lawyers were not returned.
