First Seroquel Trial Ends in Defense Jury Verdict
Some good news and a little bragging. A trial team from led by my partner Diane Sullivan obtained a defense jury verdict for AstraZeneca in the first Seroquel trial to go to verdict. A New Jersey state court jury ruled this week that the global pharmaceutical company did not fail to adequately warn the plaintiff's treating doctors of the alleged side effects of the drug.
The case, Baker v. AstraZeneca, was the first Seroquel product liability case to go to trial from the mass tort that includes thousands of cases. The majority of cases have been coordinated for pre-trial purposes in an MDL created by the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, pending in the Middle District of Florida. In addition, there are large groups of cases pending in coordinated state-court proceedings in Delaware, New Jersey, and New York. The previous nine cases set for trial have been dismissed by federal or state trial court judges, on Daubert motions and accompanying summary judgment motions -- with Dechert lawyers leading the joint-defense effort for AstraZeneca in its meritorious legal motion practice. Approximately 2,600 additional cases have been abandoned by the plaintiffs' attorneys.
Plaintiff's core allegation was that taking Seroquel caused him to get diabetes. The jury did not have to reach the issues arising from the evidence suggesting that plaintiff had many pre-existing risk factors and was already at a significantly increased risk of diabetes before he first took the medication.
