The Legal Examiner Affiliate Network The Legal Examiner The Legal Examiner The Legal Examiner search instagram avvo phone envelope checkmark mail-reply spinner error close The Legal Examiner The Legal Examiner The Legal Examiner
Skip to main content

Lawsuits against Johnson & Johnson (J&J) continued to increase in 2016, with new complaints filed over a mix of household items, drugs, and medical devices including Johnson’s Baby Powder, the DePuy and Pinnacle hip implants, the blood thinner Xarelto, and the antipsychotic Risperdal—a drug which now accounts for over 15,000 pending claims against the company.

Until recently, J&J’s strategy with many of these cases has been to go to trial rather than settle—a tactic that could be taking its toll, as it resulted in some of the largest jury verdicts of 2016. Juries awarded almost $200 million to talc users with ovarian cancer and $1.5 billion to individuals with failing artificial hips. One of the largest single verdicts against the company last year was for $70 million—handed down in July to a young Tennessee boy who claimed that taking Risperdal caused gynecomastia or the formation of female breast tissue.

J&J and its subsidiary, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, could be changing their approach for 2017. On January 9, just three days before another Risperdal case was to go to trial in Philadelphia, J&J agreed to a confidential settlement with the plaintiff—a New York boy who also suffered serious side effects while taking the drug. Ultimately, J&J has defended the settlement as an isolated decision rather than an indication of how remaining cases might be handled. Court documents show more than 2,000 lawsuits still pending as part of a mass tort litigation in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas—where the $70 million verdict was awarded last year.

J&J should be concerned with a continuous pattern of plaintiffs’ jury verdicts in Philadelphia Risperdal trials. Several additional Risperdal trials are scheduled for the first half of 2017, and more trials involving multiple plaintiff firms are to be set for trial by the end of the year. This is on top of additional trials scheduled in St. Louis over its cancer-causing baby powder claims.

The results of these upcoming trials will have a significant impact on the prospects for settlement.

One Comment

  1. Gravatar for Nereida
    Nereida

    Please, all the risperidone's victims and their lawyers should be aware about another particular way to produce gynecomastia: Aromatase syndrome. I am a woman, I developed gigantomastia, this drug has done to me another terrible damages, but my particular case it's that it has been prescribed risperidone oral solution in a 0.5mg dose for ten months while I was breastfeeding; it immediately in one month did to me to have my first menstruation after 15 months of having delivered my baby, this is compatible with Aromatase syndrome in a woman, as gynecomastia it's compatible with Aromatase syndrome in a man, there you have it how to prove their negligence! I had to be under a total hysterectomy to stop the huge bleeding, I have not ovaries since then. The lactation it's a biological process that do changes in a woman body. The warning about lactation & risperidone it's a negligent one. Janssen wrote to me three times the same letter asking ME, how the risperidone did to me all that!!!! Can you believe it? How can I prove that if I am not a medical doctor, if I am not a pharmacist, if I have not money to pay the lawyer, I'm just a 180 IQ bipolar woman, that since then, I have dedicated my life to find the way to prove how this drug has destroyed me. Please have you all in consideration a particular Aromatase syndrome induced by risperidone; but this is because a genes expression abnormality on chromosome 11, where the DRD2 and DRD4 genes of the dopamine receptors are as the INS gene it's (insulin). The explanation of how this drug make the damages it's very intense and complex. This drug does damages on women and men by the same mechanism!

Comments for this article are closed.