HARTFORD, Conn. (Legal Newsline) – The maker of the blood-thinner Pradaxa has successfully fought off a lawsuit that blamed it for a Connecticut woman’s death.
The state Supreme Court on May 4 affirmed the trial judge’s granting of summary judgment to Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, as well as the jury verdict in favor of the company on the remaining claims.
The jury found that even though Boehringer had failed to adequately warn of bleeding issues, the plaintiff failed to prove that conduct caused the death of Mary Boone.
The case was pursued by attorneys at Nemeroff Law in Texas and Tooher Wocl and Leydon in Connecticut outside of a federal multidistrict litigation proceeding that culminated in a $650 million settlement.
There are thousands of Pradaxa lawsuits around the country, and Connecticut has formed its own consolidated docket to process them.
Plaintiffs lawyers argued the trial judge improperly:
-Precluded evidence and arguments of spoliation;
-Prevented them from using an excerpt from a deposition on rebuttal;
-Granted summary judgment on the design defect claim; and
-Issued a curative instruction to the jury after closing arguments.
Boone went on Pradaxa in 2010 but suffered a severe gastrointestinal bleed four years later, which led to kidney failure and her death. The lawsuit filed by her estate alleged Boehringer failed to warn against this side effect, failed to test for a therapeutic range for the drug and did not include a reversal agent in the design of Pradaxa.
The reversal agent argument lost at the summary judgment phase.
“In order to cure the design defect alleged by the plaintiff, the defendants would have had to bring Praxbind to market before the decedent’s gastrointestinal bleed in 2014,” Justice Maria Araujo Kahn wrote.
“Because there is no dispute that Praxbind was not approved by the FDA until 2015, the defendants could not have satisfied their alleged state law duty to the decedent without marketing an unapproved drug in violation of federal law.”