After a Philadelphia judge ruled that the brand-name maker of Ambien can’t be held responsible for the label on a generic version of the drug, the plaintiff’s lawyer in the case said he would advise his client it would be impossible to prosecute the claim in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that federal law pre-empts failure-to-warn claims regarding generic drugs.
Plaintiff’s counsel Brian D. Witzer of the Law Offices of Brian D. Witzer in West Hollywood, Calif., said he will have to tell his client that the Pliva v. Mensing decision “is going to keep him from the gates of justice, period. That decision … so undermines a plaintiff’s right to recover and on such, in my view, a marginal legal basis, it basically says the generic manufacturer has no responsibility to keep a safe product.”
