Physician’s Failure To Read Trumps Drug Company’s Failure To Warn

By on October 21, 2013

When the prescribing physician in a pharmaceutical product liability case admits that at her deposition that she never reviewed the manufacturer’s label before treating her patient and that the label played no role in her decision to prescribe the drug, plaintiff’s claim that the label should have contained a stronger warning is rendered moot.

Often the physician, a trained clinician, will testify that she was familiar with the risks in question and did not need to be provided a warning. Alternatively, the physician may testify that a stronger warning would not have influenced her decision to prescribe the drug and that she still prescribes the drug, although the problem with this, is that some drugs are known for causing addiction sometimes, so the use of an Effective Diagnosis Treatment could be useful to learn if there are going to be issues with the drug. Under either scenario, it may be argued on summary judgment that the learned intermediary did not rely on the allegedly inadequate warning and that, therefore, the plaintiff cannot establish that the alleged failure to warn was a proximate cause of plaintiff’s injury. Doctors are now using 9 panel drug test to see what kind of drugs that a patient took. This will make the doctor to have a better judgement on what type of a certain drug to prescribe to that person.

In an article on his Drug and Device Law blog on October 17, 2013 titled, “Don’t Forget About a Prescribing Physician’s Failure to Read Warnings,” James M. Beck, Counsel resident in the Philadelphia office of Reed Smith, provides an exhaustive survey of cases dismissing claims where the learned intermediary physician failed to read the warnings. Beck reports on and provides summaries of decisions from 42 jurisdictions.

As Beck observed in another blog post on October 28, 2011, “After all, there is a causation element to every warning claim – the defect (whatever is allegedly wrong with the warning) has to cause the injury. If the prescribing physician never even read the purportedly inadequate warning, none of those inadequacies could have affected his/her treatment of the patient.”

Filed under Causation, Don, Drug and Device Law blog, Failure, Failure to Warn, Forget, inadequate warnings, James M. Beck, Pharmaceutical & Medical Device, Pharmaceutical Product Liability, Physician, Physician's, Prescribing, Read, Warnings Tagged with

Ex Parte Communication With Plaintiff’s Prescribing Physician

By on December 15, 2012

In product liability litigation, a single tactical advantage may determine whether the case is won or lost. Often, being able to anticipate an issue before it arises and addressing it in the Case Management Order may be critical.  This is particularly the case  in pharmaceutical mass tort litigation.

In pharmaceutical product liability cases, the plaintiff’s treating physician is a critically important witness. If one of the parties in the case  is permitted to “woodshed” the treating physician, it gives that party an enormous tactical advantage.  

For example, if only the plaintiff’s’ attorney can interview the treating physician and is able to control what information that the physician is able to see, such as defendants internal documents, plaintiff may have an enormous advantage when the physician’s deposition takes place. The physician’s opinion at deposition concerning whether a drug’s prescribing information provided an adequate warning may well be influenced by his prior review of internal company documents that she never would have seen but for review of those documents with her patient’s lawyer.

The plaintiff bar is very concerned about a defendant’s ability to be in touch with plaintiff’s treating physicians. To them, control of their client’s prescribing physician is sacred ground. 

In an excellent article on this subject titled “Ex Parte Communications with Healthcare Providers in Pharmaceutical  Mass Torts–Highlights of Recent Rulings,” Lela Hollabaugh, a partner in the Nashville office of Bradley Arant Boult Commings LLP, discusses how plaintiffs and defendants lawyers continue to jockey for position with regard to their ability to talk with treating physicians and other healthcare providers outside of the presence of opposing counsel. Increasingly, courts handling pharmaceutical mass tort litigation are entering case management orders that directly address communications with healthcare providers by all parties. Therefore, it is critically important for defense counsel to make the court aware of their concerns as early in the case as possible.

On their side, plaintiff’s counsel seek to prohibit all communications between defense lawyers and healthcare providers regardless of the subject matter. Plaintiffs vehemently argue that such communications are prohibited by the physician-patient privilege.

On the other hand, defense counsel often seek both the opportunity to talk with the doctor about the patient’s care and work to prevent the plaintiff from “woodshedding” the doctor with confidential documents from the defendant company’s internal files.

According to Ms. Hollabaugh, a frequently cited decision on this issue is that of Judge Eldon Fallon in the Vioxx litigation. In re Vioxx Products Liability Litigation, 230 F.R.D. 473 (2005).

Judge Fallon’s decision gave significant deference to the attorney-client privilege and reasoned that defendants had access to the prescribing physician’s information through medical records, depositions and defendant’s sales representative’s records. Judge Fallon’s decision does not place any limitations on plaintiff’s ex parte discussion with these private physicians. Other decisions, particularly in the MDL context, have done more to even the playing field between adversary counsel.

Ms. Hollabaugh’s paper discusses a number of decisions that have placed a limit on the part of the communications with treating physicians. These decisions prohibit plaintiff’s counsel from discussing with their client’s physicians anything other than “the particular plaintiff’s medical condition at issue in the current litigation”. In at least one case cited by Ms. Hollabaugh, plaintiffs agree to this limitation during oral argument over case management issues. 

In another important MDL, In Re Yasmin and Yaz (Drospirenone Marketing, Sales Practices and Products Liability Litigation, plaintiff’s counsel was permitted to provide treating physicians with documents not previously seen by physicians, including confidential and internal documents of the defendant, but plaintiff was required to provide detailed descriptions or copies of all documents shown to the physician to the defendants at least 72 hours before the doctor’s deposition. In addition, the plaintiffs were not permitted to provide notes, highlighting or underlining to the documents provided to the physician. 

This case law cited in the article reflects that courts recognize that the parties before the court are seeking to gain an advantage for their clients by controlling the information provided to a future trial witness. While Ms. Hollabaugh advises that we may expect the courts to continue to protect the physician-patient privilege would exist, that privilege does not and should not be permitted to extend to allow the “woodshedding” of physicians with documents and information that they have never seen, known and that have no bearing on their treatment of the individual plaintiff.  Her article providesa discussion of how several MDL courts have addressed these concerns.

For the practitioner, Ms. Hollabaugh has highlighted an important issue for defense counsel that may not otherwise be picked up during the routine course of defending a pharmaceutical product liability case. This case law should apply not just in mass tort litigation, but in “one off” pharmaceutical product liability cases as well. 

 

Filed under drug product liability, ex parte communication, In Re: Yasmin And Yaz (Drospirenone) Marketing, Sales Practices And Products Liability Litigation, Lela Hollabaugh, Pharmaceutical & Medical Device, pharmaceutical mass tort, Pharmaceutical Product Liability, Vioxx Litigation Tagged with ,

DRI Seeks To Protect Against “Innovator Liability”

By on January 12, 2012

In the case of Wyeth v. Weeks, the Alabama Supreme Court consented to answer the following question from the Middle District of Alabama: “Under Alabama law, may a drug company be held liable for fraud or misrepresentation (by misstatement or omission), based on statements it made in connection with the manufacture or distribution of a brand-name drug, by plaintiffs claiming physical injury from a generic drug manufactured and distributed by a different company?" In its brief filed on December 12, 2011—a combined effort with the Alabama Defense Lawyers Association—the Defense Research Institute (DRI)  argues that well-established state tort duty principles prohibit imposing liability on a brand-name manufacturer that did not manufacture the product ingested by plaintiffs. The contrary decision of the Middle District of Alabama is one of but three decisions in the entire country that have allowed failure-to-warn claims to proceed against a brand-name manufacturer where the plaintiff ingested a generic version of the brand-name drug.

The dispute in this case stems from plaintiffs who ingested generic metoclopramide and developed tardive dyskinesia. The plaintiffs claimed that the generic manufacturer failed to warn of the dangers of metoclopramide adequately, and sued the generic defendant on a failure to warn theory. However, the United States Supreme Court recently ruled in PLIVA, Inc. v. Mensing that, because federal regulations prohibit generic manufacturers from unilaterally altering their warning labels, state tort failure-to-warn claims against generic manufacturers are preempted by federal law. Accordingly, the plaintiffs brought suit against the brand-name manufacturers, and the Middle District of Alabama denied in part the brand-name manufacturers’ motion to dismiss. DRI argues against extending common tort principles out of their shape to impose a duty on a defendant who did not manufacture the product and has no control over it. DRI maintains that federal preemption of generic manufacturers does not change this result, even if application of proper tort principles leaves the plaintiff without a remedy.

It would be bad jurisprudence and bad precedent for the Alabama Supreme Court to uphold plaintiffs’ position and impose liability on a drug manufacturer, whose  product did not cause the alleged harm.  If that was the result, it is conceivable that a manufacturer with only 10% market share could be held strictly liable for adverse drug reactions caused by generic competitors, who might collectively control 90% of the market.  It would be unfair and unequitable to shift the burden of liability to a manufacturer whose product did not cause the injury merely because the Supreme Court has ruled that preemptioin protects generic manufacturers against state tort failure-to-warn claims. 

Filed under Defense Research Institute, DRI, generic drug manufacturers, innovator liability, Pharmaceutical & Medical Device, Pharmaceutical Product Liability, pliva v mensing, Product Manufacturers, wyeth v. weeks Tagged with

Will Wyeth v. Levine Inhibit Pharmaceutical Innovation?

By on March 12, 2009

In a provocative thought piece appearing in the Wall Street Journal on March 9, 2009, L. Gordon Crovitz predicts that the United States Supreme Court decision in Wyeth v. Levine will usher in an era of increased prices for drug and create a disincentive for new product innovation. Mr. Crovitz compares the American legal culture behind the Court’s decision to the Luddites that smashed mechanized looms in England at the beginning of the Industrial Age in 19th century England.  He also suggests that the decision’s logic may lead product manufacturers to "carry 50 different warnings, one for each state, updated by local juries from time to time."  Despite his misgivings about the decision, it is not likely that any product manufacturers, drug makers or otherwise, are likely to start tailoring their warning on a state by state basis.  As a practical matter, products are sold nationally, often through distributors, and it would be virtually impossible to  ensure that product warnings for Texas purchasers ended up in Texas and that product warnings intended for California purchasers ended up in California.  Moreover, from a jury standpoint, nothing would please a plaintiff’s lawyer more than to be able to argue that the manufacturer provided a less strict warning for the product in the jurisdiction where his client’s accident occurred. 

Read more of this post

Filed under Agencies, Associations, & Organizations, L. Gordon Crovitz, Luddites, Pharmaceutical & Medical Device, Pharmaceutical Product Liability, Wall Street Journal, Wyeth v. Levine Tagged with