04/10/2013 // West Palm Beach , Florida, US // JusticeNewsFlash // Justice News Flash // (press release)
U.S. – Drugmakers lost a bid this week to prevent 27 acetaminophen personal injury lawsuits from being consolidated. As reported by Reuters, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict litigation approved the consolidation, rejecting the drugmakers’ claims that the lawsuits did not warrant MDL status due to lacking in commonality.
Judge Kathryn Vratil is quoted in the report as writing for the panel, “Centralization will eliminate duplicative discovery, prevent inconsistent rulings … and conserve the resources of the parties, their counsel and the judiciary.”
Larry Berman, an attorney with Levin, Fishbein, Sedran & Berman who is representing plaintiffs in the acetaminophen cases, is further quoted as stating of the panel’s decision, “Before they even made their argument the panel was making inferences that they were going to grant the MDL… For all of those cases to proceed on separate, non-consolidated tracks would have been a waste of judicial resources.”
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