A New Jersey federal court granted summary judgment last week to a pharmaceutical defendant in a failure to warn case. See Baker et al. v. APP Pharmaceuticals LLP et al., No. 3:09-cv-05725 (D.N.J.).  The case should be interesting to our readers in part because there really isn’t a huge amount of law on warning causation in the busy jurisdiction of New Jersey.

During a hospital stay, plaintiff Baker was administered the commonly prescribed drug heparin. Heparin is an anticoagulant: it prevents blood clots. The opinion noted that the drug is associated  with heparin induced thrombocytopenia (“HIT”), or low blood platelet count. HIT may in a few patients progress to a more serious adverse reaction called heparin induced thrombocytopenia  and thrombosis (“HITT”). Plaintiff received heparin during and after her surgery, and a few days later her  platelet count was down; but according to the opinion it was not known at what point her platelet count reached serious levels because no one measured her platelet level for several days, despite the hospital’s stated protocol to monitor a patient’s platelet count periodically in order to detect possible HIT.

Plaintiff suffered injury to her left foot and leg, and thereafter sued several manufacturers of heparin, asserting they failed to adequately warn of the serious side-effects associated with heparin use. The parties agreed that defendant’s heparin has always contained FDA-approved labeling, including risk disclosures and warnings. In 2001, the heparin label specifically disclosed the risk of HIT and HITT in the “Precautions” section.  In 2005, defendant submitted a supplemental NDA via the “changes being effected” process to include additional HIT and HITT information the “Warnings” section of its heparin labeling. See 21 C.F.R. 314.70. The FDA suggested several alterations, all of which defendant incorporated into the labeling, and the FDA found the updated labeling “acceptable” in June 2007.

In New Jersey, product liability actions are governed by the New Jersey Products Liability Act (“PLA”). N.J. Stat. Ann. §2A:58C-1, et seq. Under the PLA, in failure to warn cases involving prescription drugs, if the warning or instruction given in connection with a drug has been approved or prescribed by the FDA, there is a rebuttable presumption that the warning is adequate. This is no ordinary rebuttable presumption, remarked the court. Compliance with FDA regulations gives rise to “what can be denominated as a super-presumption.” Kendall v. Hoffman-La Roche, Inc., 36 A.3d 541, 544 (N.J. 2012).  Indeed, the PLA’s presumption that an FDA-approved prescription drug label is adequate “is stronger and of greater evidentiary weight than the customary presumption referenced” in the rules of evidence. Bailey v. Wyeth, Inc., 37 A.3d 549, 571 (N.J. Super. Ct. Law Div. 2008), aff’d sub nom. Deboard v. Wyeth, 28 A.3d 1245 (N.J. Super Ct. App. Div. 2011).

In this case, there is no dispute that the heparin labeling was approved by the FDA. Therefore, defendant was entitled to the statutory presumption that its heparin labeling satisfied its duty to warn. Plaintiff tried to rebut the presumption, first, with allegations of deliberate concealment or nondisclosure of after-acquired knowledge of harmful effects by the pharmaceutical company, and second with allegations of an economically-driven manipulation of the post-market regulatory process. See McDarby v. Merck & Co., Inc., 949 A.2d 223, 256 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. 2008).

However, significantly, all of the information plaintiff accused defendant of withholding was publicly available in published scientific and medical literature.  And defendant did in fact disclose much
of what plaintiff claimed was deliberately concealed or withheld. For example, when submitting its proposed updated label to the FDA in 2005, Baxter included several scientific articles and a number of adverse event reports relating to HIT and HITT.  As to the second rebuttal effort, plaintiff offered no real evidence that Baxter rejected the FDA’s proposed changes to heparin labeling, or asked pharmaceutical representatives to avoid discussing HIT and HITT when speaking to physicians, or manipulated the conclusions of heparin clinical trials, or did anything sufficient to “manipulate” the regulatory process.

The more interesting part of the opinion arises from the fact that even if a plaintiff is able to demonstrate that a prescription drug’s warning is inadequate, that plaintiff still must prove that the inadequate warning proximately caused her injury. See Campos v. Firestone Tire & Rubber Co., 485 A.2d 305, 311 (N.J. 1984). “To satisfy this burden, a plaintiff must show that adequate warnings would have altered her doctors’ decision to prescribe.” Strumph v. Schering Corp., 606 A.2d 1140 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. 1992) (Skillman, J., dissenting), rev’d 626 A.2d 1090 (1993) (adopting Judge Skillman’s dissent).

The court noted that “a heeding presumption may be applicable to claims of failure to warn of the dangers of pharmaceuticals.” McDarby, 949 A.2d at 267. A heeding presumption allows one to presume that the plaintiff’s physician would not have prescribed the drug to the plaintiff if there had been an adequate warning; in other words, the plaintiff’s physician would have heeded the adequate warning. The heeding presumption is rebuttable and can be rebutted if the plaintiff’s physician was aware of the risks of the drug that he prescribed, and having conducted a risk-benefit analysis, nonetheless determined its use to be warranted. Also. a manufacturer who allegedly fails to warn the medical community of a particular risk may nonetheless be relieved of liability under the learned intermediary doctrine if the prescribing physician either did not read the warning at all, or if the physician was aware of the risk from other sources and already considered the risk in prescribing the product. In that context, the physician’s conduct is the superseding, intervening cause that breaks the chain of liability between the manufacturer and the patient.

Here, the doctor stood by his decision to administer heparin to Mrs. Baker. She required heparin by standard medical procedure, and well documented clinical knowledge, at several different  points during her operation and for several different reasons, he opined.  Since he was aware of the risks of the drug that he prescribed and, having conducted a risk-benefit analysis, nonetheless determined its use to be warranted, the presumption was rebutted as a matter of law.

Moreover, the prescriber testified in his deposition that he does not read the label of drugs he frequently prescribes, which includes heparin. Therefore, a different warning would not have made a difference in plaintiff’s treatment or outcome because there was no evidence he would have reviewed it.

Finally, there was a third causation problem; the opinion notes that it was undisputed that, despite doctors orders, the Hospital failed to follow its own heparin treatment protocol. Had that monitoring occurred, Mrs. Baker’s physicians would have discovered the onset of HIT sooner. Plaintiff’s own expert admitted that her injuries “would have been substantially mitigated” with a “good chance of avoiding” them.   Therefore, plaintiff failed to raise a genuine issue of material fact that it was the heparin labeling, as opposed to the conduct of the hospital, that caused her injury.

Summary judgment on the warning claim.