A federal district court has thrown out a jury award of more than $27 million in punitive damages awarded to a Little Rock, Ark. woman who developed breast cancer allegedly as a result of taking hormone replacement therapy. In re: Prempro Products Liability Litig. (Scroggin v. Wyeth, et. al.), MDL No. 1507-WRW, 4:04CV01169.  Plaintiff Donna Scroggin developed breast cancer and had a double mastectomy, and blamed the hormone drugs she allegedly took for 11 years to combat menopausal symptoms. Defendants noted their products have carried a label warning of a heightened risk of breast cancer at all relevant times. In February, a federal jury returned a verdict in favor of Scroggin in her lawsuit against drug makers Wyeth and Upjohn, awarding her $2.75 million in compensatory damages and $27 million in punitive damages.

In an opinion July 8th on post-trial motions, Judge Wilson, of the E.D. of Arkansas, threw out the punitive damages award, finding he should not have permitted certain key testimony from a former Food and Drug Administration official, Dr. Suzanne Parisian. She had testified as the plaintiff’s regulatory expert. The Court concluded, as defendants had asserted, that Dr. Parisian testified to a bottom line conclusion without sufficient explanation, failed to provide expert analysis, testified beyond limitations established by pretrial orders, testified in areas beyond her expertise, and invaded areas that required no expert testimony. Specifically, the expert failed to provide convincing testimony that Wyeth’s actions had violated FDA regulations in any way that would warrant a punitive award.

In a part of the ruling particularly useful for readers of MassTortDefense, the judge said the expert did little more than read select portions of exhibits without providing further comment. Contrary to plaintiff’s position during the Daubert hearing, and during the punitive damages stage, Dr. Parisian, generally, did not give the jury the tools they need to look at those documents, or to understand them in the context of a regulatory background — she simply read the documents to the jury. He hadn’t admitted such “so that [the expert] could simply engage in recitation of those exhibits; jurors are capable of reading documents.” Ironically, on cross-examination, Dr. Parisian, on at least one occasion, took the position that the document “speaks for itself.”

If an expert does nothing more than read exhibits, is there really any point in her testifying as an expert? The Court said “no.” As was seen during the punitive damages stage, the use of the “regulatory expert” to deal with large volumes of conduct documents is subject to abuse. MassTortDefense has seen this same technique in asbestos, in tobacco, in other pharma cases. The expert here did not explain the documents, provide summaries, or tie them in to her proposed regulatory testimony. Dr. Parisian did not provide analysis or expertise. Instead, improperly, she was a mere document delivery device.

The promised expert testimony simply was not delivered, said the Court, “so I should have struck this testimony at the time.”  Without Parisian’s testimony, plaintiff had not presented sufficient other evidence to meet the clear and convincing standard required for punitive damages. The Court said plaintiff tried to present evidence of what, out of context and at first blush, might be considered questionable practices (e.g., alleged ghostwriting, countering negative press, etc.), but all this fell far short of establishing a submissible jury issue on punitives.