Drug & Device News

A federal judge in Boston has declined to dismiss certain state-law claims against a Dallas clinic and doctor involved in the multidistrict lawsuit based on injuries caused by contaminated lots of medication prepared and distributed by the New England Compounding Pharmacy. Those contaminated products led to a total of 64 bacterial meningitis deaths in various parts of the United States, as well as more than 700 non-lethal illnesses. U.S. District Judge Rya W. Zobel, in In Re: New England Compounding Pharmacy Inc. Products Liability Litigation, determined that claims seeking damages based on violation of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, negligence and gross negligence, battery and failure to warn could go forward. In addition, the plaintiffs were entitled to seek punitive damages for injuries caused by the epidural steroid injections doled out at the Dallas clinic based on their allegations that the defendants willfully and knowingly failed to follow consumer safety regulations and withheld important safety information from the victims treated by them. According to plaintiffs' steering committee lawyer Mark Lipton of Lipton Law in Southfield, MI, this ruling and others issued by Judge Zobel in August pertaining to clinics in New Jersey and Tennessee show that the court “recognizes that ordinary negligence law is the primary basis for these claims and not more restrictive state malpractice statutes.”