With New Jersey State Court Fosamax Lawsuits Now Assigned To Judge Mayer, We Hope These Cases Get Back On Track
(Posted by Tom Lamb at DrugInjuryWatch.com)
UPDATE: On March 22, 2017 the Third Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the dismissal by U.S. District Court Joel Pisano of all the pending federal court Fosamax – femur fracture cases nationwide on federal preemption grounds. The Third Circuit significantly held that the ultimate question of whether the FDA would have rejected a Fosamax label change by Merck for the increased risk of femur fractures is a question of fact for the jury, rather than for the court, to decide.
(3/23/17)
In our last update, “December 2014 Fosamax – Femur Fracture Litigation Update: In The Fosamax Federal Court MDL There Are Dismissals, Appeals, And Court-Ordered Mediations”, we only mentioned in passing the New Jersey state court Fosamax femur fracture litigation.
Even though there is little new information about those cases, this is where we begin in our first Fosamax update for 2015.
From Merck’s Form 10-K Annual Report For the Fiscal Year Ended December 31, 2014 we get this information about the femur fracture aspect of the Fosamax products liability litigation (at pp. 110-111 of the PDF document):
As of December 31, 2014, approximately 3,005 cases alleging Femur Fractures have been filed in New Jersey state court and are pending before Judge Jessica Mayer in Middlesex County. The parties selected an initial group of 30 cases to be reviewed through fact discovery. Two additional groups of 50 cases each to be reviewed through fact discovery were selected in November 2013 and March 2014, respectively.
The current number of these Fosamax lawsuits means there were about 85 femur fracture cases filed from the end of September 2014 to end of December 2014.
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Meanwhile, over at the New Jersey Courts website for the Fosamax Multicounty Litigation (accessed 3/2/15) we see some rather disappointing status information: “At this time, there are no events scheduled.”
Going back to the Merck Annual Report for 2015, we get these three additional facts from the drug company:
- As of December 31, 2014, approximately 515 cases alleging Femur Fractures have been filed in California state court.
- Additionally, there are four Femur Fracture cases pending in other state courts.
- Discovery is ongoing in the Fosamax Femur Fracture MDL and in state courts where Femur Fracture cases are pending and the Company intends to defend against these lawsuits.
As previewed at the outset, there is not much new to report at the present time.
Here are our two other 2014 Fosamax updates, in addition to the one referenced above:
Hopefully in the coming months there will be some positive developments for women who suffered a Fosamax – femur fracture event and have filed a drug injury lawsuit against Merck.
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DrugInjuryLaw.com: Legal Information And News About Prescription Drug Side Effects (All website content by attorney Tom Lamb)
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