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Drug & Device News

By ALM Staff | Law Journal Newsletters |
January 31, 2013

Defense Wants Judge to Remove Herself from Accutane Case

Defense attorney Michael Griffinger is asking that Judge Carol Higbee recuse herself from the ongoing New Jersey class action litigation against pharmaceuticals manufacturer Hoffmann-LaRoche. The suit alleges that consumers suffered injuries from their use of the drug Accutane, an acne medication. Griffinger's motion charges Judge Higbee with violating New Jersey's Code of Judicial Conduct Canon 5(a)(1) ' which admonishes judges to avoid conflicts of interest when carrying out their extrajudicial activities ' when she appeared at a defense lawyer organization's seminar event in New Orleans in 2012. There, according to Griffinger's motion, Judge Higbee sat on a panel that included the Accutane plaintiffs' lead counsel, and she “directly addressed [the Accutane] litigation and legal issues relevant to it.” These actions, said Griffinger in his motion papers “inexorably lead to the conclusion that the [c]ourt is no longer impartial and that its appearance of impartiality is irretrievably lost.”

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