New Lawsuit News As Farxiga Moves Before JPML
Plaintiffs who have filed claims against Farxiga will appear before the JPML in March.
Thursday, March 23, 2017 - New MDL lawsuit news has sprung up in the wake of a plaintiff in a Farxiga claim filing a motion to transfer all federal actions to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The motion to transfer names Farxiga lawsuits currently filed in six separate district courts to be consolidated by the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, the body that determines whether or not a motion to transfer can proceed as an MDL. The motion to transfer was filed on February 3.
The plaintiff who filed the motion to transfer is requesting that the actions filed against Farxiga manufacturer AstraZeneca be consolidated before a single federal judge to help the efficiency of the proceedings. Lawsuits are generally consolidated into multidistrict litigation when there are a large number of federal claims that share common questions of fact and would benefit from consolidation to help coordinate pretrial orders and eliminate duplicate discovery. The plaintiffs who filed to motion to transfer believes that the Farxiga litigation would benefit from both these measures offered by the MDL process.
The Farxiga claims filed against AstraZeneca allege that the company harmed its consumers by manufacturing a diabetes drug that subsequently led to serious kidney complications. The lawsuits claim that the condition created by taking Farxiga have the potential to be life-threatening and that the patients were at no time warned of the complications that could be caused by Farxiga.
The motion to transfer requests the claim be consolidated to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, though there are a number of claims in other districts that have also received attention in potential centralizing districts. The Southern District of New York currently holds 13 of the 18 claims included in the motion to transfer, however there is one claim in each of the following districts: the Eastern District of Pennsylvania,
The Southern District of Illinois, the Southern District of Alabama, the Eastern District of Louisiana, and the Northern District of Mississippi.
The motion to transfer states that if the Southern District of New York is not chosed by the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation for the home of the MDL, that the Eastern District of Pennsylvania or the Southern District of Illinois be chosen al alternates. Since there are Farxiga claims pending before all these courts, the motion to transfer feels that any of the judges will be fit to preside over the MDL.
The motion to transfer will be argued before and heard by the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation on March 30 in Phoenix, Arizona where the next hearing session will take place. There are a number of factors that go into the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation‘s decision on whether or not to consolidate a motion to transfer, ranging from the number of lawsuits to the nature of the claims made against the defendant. It is difficult to predict whether or not the Farxiga claims will be consolidated, but if they are the announcement will be made within a week or two of the March hearing.
