A federal court in Ohio recently ruled that a plaintiff who used only the generic form of the drug metoclopramide has no cause of action under the Ohio Product Liability Act against makers of the brand-name drug. Hogue v. Pfizer Inc., No. 10-805 (S.D. Ohio, 9/27/12).
In late 2000, Ms. Hogue’s physician prescribed Reglan® to treat plaintiff”s abdominal pain and digestive problems. Ms. Hogue then began to take generic metoclopramide and continued to do so until about August 2009. The parties stipulate she ingested only the generic version of metoclopramide, which the Brand Defendants did not manufacture. She later allegedly suffered side effects and sued both the branded and the generic manufacturers for an alleged failure to warn. And so we have two rulings to reflect the status of each kind of defendant.
The generic defendants filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that the United States Supreme Court held in PLIVA, Inc. v. Mensing that such state law tort claims against generic drug manufacturers are preempted by federal law. Generic defendants pointed out that the Mensing case involved the same generic medication at issue in this case, the same alleged injuries, some of the same generic drug manufacturer defendants, the same claims, etc. Plaintiff argued that nonetheless the Mensing holding was somehow more limited. The court agreed with the defendants: First, the Supreme Court rejected the theories that generic drug manufacturers could use the “changes-being-effected” (“CBE”) process to change their labels to satisfy the state law. The FDA interprets the CBE process to allow generic manufacturers to change generic drug labels only to match an updated brand-name label or to follow the FDA’s instructions. Any unilateral change to labels by generic drug manufacturers would violate the federal requirement that generic drugs be identical to brand name drugs in both substance and labeling.
Second, the court noted that the Supreme Court has considered and rejected the plaintiff’s argument that the generic drug manufacturers could have sent “Dear Doctor” letters as additional
warnings. Dear Doctor letters qualify as “labeling” and therefore must be consistent with, and not
contrary to, the rest of the drug’s approved labeling. Any Dear Doctor letter containing substantially new warnings would not conform to the approved labeling. Moreover, if generic drug
manufacturers, but not the brand-name manufacturer, sent such letters, that would inaccurately imply a therapeutic difference between the branded and generic drugs and thus could be impermissibly misleading.
Third, the Supreme Court already considered whether the generic drug manufacturers could have complied with the state laws by proposing stronger warning labels to the FDA. Even assuming such a duty exists on the part of generics, which is not clear, fulfillment of that duty would not have satisfied the state law requirements. Because it was impossible to comply with both federal law and state law, the plaintiff’s state law claims were preempted.
Plaintiff further argued that Mensing didn’t apply when the FDA has designated a defendant’s drug as a reference listed drug (“RLD”). But the designation of a drug as an RLD does not change the manufacturer’s status as an Amended New Drug Application (“ANDA”) holder, the RLD designation does nothing to alter an ANDA holder’s duties concerning labeling changes.
On the legal side, even if a failure to warn was preempted, plaintiff argued that several of her legal claims were not based on a theory of failure to warn. For example, plaintiff stated her breach of warranty claims did not conflict with any federal requirement regarding labeling and thus were not preempted. But the required analysis here is to focus not on the label or caption of the count, but the substance of the claim; and the other claims such as breach of warranty were in fact predicated on the failure to provide adequate warnings and were preempted. See also Smith v. Wyeth, 657 F.3d 420, 423 (6th Cir. 2011 ), cert. denied 132 S. Ct. 2103.
Brand defendants moved for summary judgment, arguing that Ohio law requires a plaintiff to prove the defendant manufactured the product that caused her injuries. Because they did not manufacture the metoclopramide Ms. Hogue ingested, her claims against them should fail as a matter of law.
The court noted that under Ohio law the defendant must have sold the actual product that was the cause of harm for which the claimant seeks to recover compensatory damages, and proof that a manufacturer designed or sold the type of product in question is not proof that the manufacturer did so for the actual defective product in the product liability claim. The Ohio Product Liability Act displaced plaintiff’s common law claims, and required plaintiff to prove the defendant manufactured the product that caused her injuries. They did not, so summary judgment was warranted.
(Note SHB works for the defense in part of this litigation.)