Pamela Yates Discusses How She Obtained Successful Denial of Centralization of Birth Control Litigation in The National Law Journal

The National Law Journal reports that the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) recently issued an order denying the centralization of two actions filed against Kaye Scholer clients Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Vintage Pharmaceuticals, LLC d/b/a Qualitest Pharmaceuticals. The two separate actions relate to the September 2011 recall of allegedly improperly packaged oral contraceptive products manufactured for Endo unit Qualitest. The plaintiffs alleged that they purchased one or more incorrectly packaged products and, as a result of taking the pills in the wrong order, were left at risk for unwanted pregnancy. The JPML denied the motion to centralize the actions, noting that the cases relied too much on individual facts, such as whether the plaintiffs actually got pregnant as a result of taking the pills, to justify centralization.

Kaye Scholer Product Liability Partner Pamela Yates led the defense team and presented oral argument before the JPML, arguing that more than 99 percent of the packages were not defective. “What the company did was when a consumer reported to a pharmacist, and the pharmacist reported to my client, that there was some rotation on the pills, we recalled all products over a certain time span that followed the same manufacturing procedure, looking for other errors,” she said, continuing, “We found a very, very low error rate, far less than 1 percent. Of the people who have sued, not a single one has proven or shown they received one that had a rotated row of recalled contraceptives.”