Levaquin - Lawsuit Overview
Plaintiffs Lovie Armstrong, Cecil Brown, Darrell Griggs and Bessie Smith have filed two new, separate lawsuits against the manufacturers and distributors of Levaquin, a popular antibiotic marketed to the elderly. Levaquin has been linked to damage in the tendons, leading to ruptures and serious injuries as a result. The cases were filed in Illinois county courts, and name Ortho McNeill, Johnson and Johnson and Walgreens as defendants.
These are, of course, merely the newest cases to go forward in the ongoing Levaquin lawsuit series. The medicine's effects are becoming increasingly well known, and in some cases the discussion is not about if but when the defendants will choose to settle, and under what terms. Still, the matter is not yet decided, and there are many formalities to move through.
Hundreds of lawsuits have been filed against the makers and sellers of Levaquin since these tendon incidents became known. Many of the cases focus on the fact that the black-box labeling that the FDA eventually required on the medicine should have been mandated much sooner, which may have prevented many debilitating or crippling injuries that since have been suffered.
The highest-level lawsuits have been consolidated at the federal level for pretrial hearings. This is a serious step, allowing for a great deal of information to be brought together and gathered centrally.
Additionally, the first six cases were green lighted for a “bellwether” test. Such cases, also called early trials, are used as representatives of the movement as a whole. They go forward and are argued out so that each side can both present and refine their arguments at large, to give both plaintiffs and defendants a look at how a much larger trial might go at a later date.
Frequently, the bellwether cases decide how the rest of the matter will go. This is typically where decisions to settle are reached in such mass cases, so it's an exciting and anxious time, to be sure.
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