Two juries award more than $103 million to punish Pfizer unit, Wyeth

Connie Barton and Donna Kendall both have something in common: they stood up to one of the largest and most powerful drug companies in court — and won. Monday, November 23, 2009, in Philadelphia, PA, these two verdicts against Wyeth (a division of Pfizer) over its hormone therapy drugs (Premarin® and Prempro®) were released. Breast cancer survivors are winning the war against hormone replacement therapy (HRT) makers Wyeth and Pfizer.

Janet, Jenner & Suggs attorney Robert K. Jenner is co-counsel in the cases involving Connie Barton, Peoria, IL, Mary Daniels, Hot Springs, AK, and Diane Wisneski, of Potomac, MD.

In each case, the jury awarded these women significant compensatory and punitive damages ranging from more than $34 million to $78 million. And this is just the tip of the iceberg as Wyeth faces lawsuits from more than 10,000 additional women who also claim that Wyeth’s drugs gave them breast cancer. A third punitive verdict that was awarded in 2007 in the Daniel v. Wyeth case was scheduled to be released today as well. However, Wyeth was granted emergency relief this morning to keep the third verdict sealed.
The evidence at these trials showed Wyeth’s unrelenting campaign to make billions of dollars in profit from these drugs while keeping the truth about the drugs’ dangers secret. Jurors were shocked to learn that:

• Wyeth was on notice of the need to study whether combination hormone therapy causes breast cancer as early as 1975, but failed to conduct a single breast cancer study over the course of the next three decades — despite over a dozen red flags that breast cancer was a safety problem;
• Instead of studying the breast cancer risk, Wyeth took active steps to downplay, dismiss and contain the release of data from other institution’s studies that showed such risk;
• Even worse, Wyeth ghost-wrote dozens of medical articles that minimized the breast cancer risk and exaggerated the benefits of hormone therapy and then published these articles in reputable medical journals under independent doctor’s names;
• It was not until a government study was stopped early because of breast cancer that the world learned the truth;
• Studies now confirm that 200,000 women — grandmothers, mothers, sisters and wives — would not have suffered breast cancer but for their use of combination hormone therapy drugs.

Today’s verdicts clearly show that when jurors hear how Wyeth put huge profits over the safety of patients, they will react with a strong message of outrage. Just last month, a legal ruling from the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed that Wyeth did wrong and that juries should be permitted to hear this evidence and determine whether the company should be punished. Robert Peck, President of the Constitutional Law Center explains that this ruling shows that “Wyeth’s behavior outraged these judges.”
As Michael Richmond, a jury foreperson in a Prempro® trial, explains: “Wyeth had no concern whatsoever for the health of the patients. They were only concerned about their profits.” These verdicts — with significant punitive awards – confirm the anger of a community when the truth is learned.

Of the twelve verdicts to date, Plaintiffs have been awarded money by 10 of the 12 juries. Every jury that has been permitted to deliberate on punitive damages has returned substantial punitive damage awards. For a summary of all hormone therapy verdicts to date, see the attached chart. In addition, thirteen women have settled their hormone therapy claims with Wyeth or Pfizer.

The verdicts released today are:

Donna Kendall v. Wyeth (Phila. CCP, June Term, 2004, No. 0965):
Jury Verdict: Compensatory Damages: $6,300,000
Punitive Damages: $28,000,000
For more information about the Kendall case, please contact trial counsel Tobi Millrood at tmillrood@pbmattorneys.com or (610) 941-4204.

Connie Barton v. Wyeth (Phila. CCP, April Term 2004, No. 06301):
Jury Verdict: Compensatory Damages: $3,746,344
Punitive Damages: $75,000,000
For more information about the Barton case, please contact trial counsel Zoe Littlepage at zoe@littlepagebooth.com or (713) 529-8000.

Drug Maker Shares Breast Cancer Survivor’s Pain
Jury Rules in Favor of Woman Who Says Wyeth Drugs Caused Breast Cancer

For Arlene Rowatt, a grandmother of eight, yesterday’s verdict in the Wyeth hormone replacement therapy suit is a sweet victory.

A Nevada jury awarded Rowatt more than $42 million for her share of $99 million in punitive damages, and $35 million in compensatory damages – the largest ever judgment against the nation’s leading maker of hormone replacement therapies.

Rowatt followed her doctors’ orders and took Premarin®, and then Prempro®, to ease the symptoms of menopuase for nearly eight years.

“They kept telling me there may be some heart benefit, and I believed them,” Rowatt said. “If you can’t believe your doctor, who can you believe?”

Seven years ago, Rowatt was diagnosed with breast cancer. With no family history of breast cancer, she blamed the drugs for causing the disease.

“There is no other explanation,” Rowatt said.

Rowatt’s lawyers introduced internal documents they say proved that Wyeth knew their products increased the risk of breast cancer, nearly two decades before a pair of studies established a clear link that convinced many doctors to back off widespread use of hormone replacement therapy.

Wyeth claims the drugs, which are still on the market, are safe, and that the label gives clear warning about the risk of breast cancer. But the Washoe County District Court jury felt the warning did not go far enough.

Today, Wyeth appealed the verdict, but their legal troubles are far from over. The company still faces more than 5,000 similar lawsuits related to its hormone replacement medicines – and legal experts say this may be only the beginning.

“This is a therapy that millions of women took at one time, so the liability here for makers of this type of therapy is potentially huge,” said Paul Rothstein of the Georgetown University Law Center.

Lawyers said drug makers have good reason to worry.

“I think pharmaceutical companies always look at the bottom line. Now, they have to look at the bottom line with their investors, because this is a verdict that hurts, and should hurt,” said trial lawyer Robert Jenner.

But this monumental verdict is still not enough for Rowatt.

“[The money] really can’t give me back part of my body,” she said. “The chemotherapy I had to endure is terrible.”

It’s a pain that, a jury has determined, the maker of the drug she took must share.

Judgment Against D.C. Called ‘Staggering’

A D.C. Superior Court jury ordered the District government yesterday to pay $24.2 million to a brain-damaged 7-year-old girl whose heart stopped after she received port treatment at D.C. General Hospital.
District attorneys plan to appeal the amount of the award, which includes $8 million for Lynteakia Beal’s future care and $16 million for her pain and suffering. She lives in a D.C. group home and is profoundly retarded.

“It’s a staggering number. Even if there’s absolutely no question about our liability, the number is arguably unreasonable,” said Walter Smith, a senior attorney for the D.C. government. “It doesn’t mean for a moment that anyone defends what happened, or that anyone begrudges her a dime.”

The medical malpractice award – to be reviewed by Superior Court Judge Richard A. Levie and possibly by the D.C. Court of Appeals-is the largest in the city in memory, said several lawyers.
“I’m not aware of any bigger ones in the District of Columbia,” said Jack Olender, a leading malpractice lawyer in the city. “I’ve had some $10 million verdicts, but that’s topped them off. It shows that juries are responding appropriately to very severe injuries”

Howard A. Janet, Lynteakia’s attorney, told the jury on Friday that this case is not an example of “frivolous medical malpractice claims” that some politicians target in campaigns for tort reform.
“This is an example of the worst medical care imaginable,” Janet said, “resulting in the most horrifying injuries imaginable.”

Lynteakia was 16 months old in March 1992, when she was taken to D.C. General’s emergency room with severe respiratory problems. As her condition worsened and her airways became heavily clogged, the jury learned, doctors failed to insert a tube in time to aid her breathing. Her heart stopped for eight to 10 minutes.

“From a perfectly healthy 16-month-old baby, you have a child who is a spastic quadriplegic, has cerebral palsy, has a seizure disorder, some visual and hearing impairment and is incontinent,” said attorney Donna Wulkan, one of Lynteakia’s guardians. “She basically functions at a 5-or-6-month-old’s level.”

Responsible parties will pay for care, not taxpayers, attorney notes.

ST. PAUL – Thanks to a $15.5 million jury award, Minnesota taxpayers won’t have to foot the bill for a lifetime of care for a child permanently disabled by birth injuries due to medical negligence, his lawyer said today.

“The economic burden will fall on those responsible for his condition, not on public health services, which often pick up the tab in catastrophic situations. This is not only justice for the child and his family, but for society as a whole,” said Howard Janet, of Janet, Jenner & Suggs, LLP, Baltimore, MD.

A St. Paul jury on Oct. 26 awarded Janet’s client, five-year-old Dhevyn Blackburn and his mother, Meshell Davis, a total of $15.5 million in their medical negligence lawsuit. The award includes $9 million in future medical and home care expenses, with the balance in lost future earnings, past medical expenses, past and future pain and suffering and lost services to his mother.

Defendants were Aspen Medical Group, PA, of St. Paul, and obstetrician Samuel Patrick Donegan, M.D. The family earlier reached out of court settlements with a local hospital and several nurses involved in the case.

The trial was held in Ramsey County District Court, Second Judicial District. Judge David C. Higgs presided. Steve C. Offutt, with Janet, Jenner & Suggs, also represented the family.

During the trial, the jury of five women and two men heard testimony that doctors with Aspen Medical Group allowed Davis to labor for 19 hours without checking on her, despite numerous indications the fetus was in distress and was not receiving enough oxygen. Dr. Donegan, who finally delivered the baby, came in a full two hours after receiving the last update from nurses that the baby was still showing signs of trouble, according to testimony.

As a result of oxygen deprivation, the full term child was born with mental retardation and has a severe form of cerebral palsy known as spastic quadriplegia.

“According to one of the country’s leading pediatric neurologists, 12 to 23 percent of term babies who develop cerebral palsy do so because of inadequate oxygenation during the birth process,” noted Janet, whose firm has offices across the country and has evaluated thousands of birth injury cases nationwide.

“One of the things we have found in our cerebral palsy cases is that while fetal heart monitors were worn by laboring mothers, patterns indicating distress were either misinterpreted or ignored by doctors, or both.

“When there are any signs of fetal distress, parents are entitled to face-to-face bedside care and monitoring by their physician, and when circumstances warrant, timely delivery by cesarean section. Anything less is unacceptable.” Janet said.

Janet is known nationally for representation of children suffering from cerebral palsy as the result of preventable birth injuries and as an advocate for the rights of children and adults with cerebral palsy.

(Articles about this verdict appeared in the Minneapolis Tribune, the St. Paul Pioneer Press, the Associated Press and Minnesota Lawyer.)

Jury awards record verdict for child’s cerebral palsy caused by brain injury sustained during birth.
A Minnesota jury awarded $9.3 Million to the family of a child who developed cerebral palsy as a result of mismanagement of labor and delivery.

Janet, Jenner & Suggs, LLC Receives $5.9 Million Verdict in Medical Malpractice Case

On May 10, 2005, Ken Suggs obtained a $5.9 million verdict in the District of Columbia on behalf of a 62 year old woman and her husband. In the case, the surgeon and hospital failed to diagnose and treat a spinal epidural hematoma timely. The woman underwent a lumbar laminectomy which was done appropriately. The day after her surgery, she began experiencing problems, including urinary incontinence and increasing pain, which symptoms continued to get worse. On the second day after surgery, because of these increasing signs and symptoms, a resident performed a neurological strength examination, which showed very concerning results. The resident ordered that a CT myelogram be performed right away. The results of that test showed that a blood clot was pressing on the spinal cord. The resident began taking steps to prepare the patient for surgery to take out the blood clot. The attending surgeon reviewed the myelogram but also wanted an MRI done before taking the patient back to surgery. Regrettably, that test did not get performed for another two days. At that time, the patient was belatedly taken back to surgery, but the permanent damage had already taken place. The negligent failure to act promptly lead to the wife’s partial paraplegia and neurogenic bowel and bladder. The woman must now insert a urinary catheter in herself every 4 hours, 24 hours per day, and she wears a diaper for her bowel movements. She has been in and out of the hospital for urinary tract infections, leading to sepsis, many of which required extended hospitalizations.

A York County jury on Friday awarded $4.4 million to the parents of a child who suffered a brain injury at birth. The award was against Piedmont Hospital.

The jury said the hospital was at fault when it assigned a nurse trainee to monitor Robin Wilson, who arrived three days before her scheduled induction with nausea and vomiting. The nurse misread fetal heart monitoring data showing the baby was in dire distress and needed emergency intervention, according to the plaintiffs.

Sierra Wilson was born Nov. 18, 2003, with severe brain injury due to oxygen deprivation and later developed Cerebral Palsy. She died Feb. 13, 2008, of complications from cerebral palsy, exactly one year, to the day, of the verdict.

“When medical professionals fail to meet reasonable standards of care they need to be held accountable, and the jury agreed with that,” said Ken Suggs, of Janet, Jenner & Suggs, Columbia, S.C., attorney for the couple.

“It’s particularly tragic when the negligence involves a child who is sentenced to lifetime of disability and her parents to a lifetime of heartache,” said Jerry Jowers, also with Janet, Jenner & Suggs.

Robin and her husband, Brice, of Ft. Lawn, sued Piedmont Hospital, doing business as Amisub, in the York County Court of Common Pleas.

Janet, Jenner & Suggs, LLC, a national firm based in Baltimore, MD, represents victims of medical malpractice and pharmaceutical negligence. It also has offices in Columbia, SC, and Asheville, NC, and maintains satellite offices in Atlanta, GA, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, PA and Minneapolis, MN.

Read More at the Herald Online…

Janet, Jenner & Suggs, LLC Recovers $3.7 Million Jury Verdict in Cerebral Palsy / Medical Malpractice Case

On April 14, 2005, a South Carolina jury awarded Lisa and Damon Viele, and their daughter Elizabeth $3.7 million dollars to compensate them for Elizabeth’s cerebral palsy injuries that she suffered at birth following Lisa’s doctor’s failure to perform a timely delivery.

On September 18, 1999, Lisa Viele was admitted to Toumey Regional Medical Center for induction of labor. It was to be her first child. She and her husband Damon were excited about the prospect of becoming parents for the first time. Lisa was given Pitocin, a drug that makes the contractions more intense and Cytotec, a drug that causes the Uterus to get thinner. At first, her labor progressed normally, and the fetal heart monitor, a device that physicians use to track the health of the baby by measuring her heart rate and comparing it to mom’s contractions, showed reassuring signs. The baby’s heart was reacting normally to the contractions. Around 6:00 PM, things started to take a turn for the worse. The baby’s heart rate began to slow down too much at contractions and started to take a long time to come back to normal. The nurses called Lisa’s Obstetrician and she came in at 8:18 that night and ordered that the Pitocin, a drug that intensifies contractions, be increased.

After she left the Hospital, the nurses continued to note problems with the labor and delivery. The noticed that the baby’s heart was still slowing down at the wrong times and taking a long time to recover. The noticed that the pattern of the heart rate on the monitor was abnormal. Lisa’s doctor came in again at 10:30, and despite the problems that were evident, decided to stop Lisa’s pitocin and wait it out overnight. She left the Hospital at midnight, aware of the problems that the baby was having. At 1:30 AM the nurses called Lisa’s doctor at home and told her that the decelerations were still present and that the variability of the babies heart rate, another good thing to look for, was absent. The Doctor ordered Lisa’s epidural, a pain remedy, removed but did not come to the hospital.

By 8:00 AM the next morning the heart rate had become flat and Dr. Anderson was called again. At 8:25 she came to the hospital and ordered a c-section. When Elizabeth was born, she needed oxygen to revive her. Soon after she was born, she started having seizures. A CT scan, taken 8 hours after she was born, showed the first signs of brain damage. The damage was severe and permanent.

Lisa and Damon wondered why the Doctor hadn’t delivered Elizabeth sooner and wanted to know if that would have prevented her injuries. To that end, they hired Ken Suggs and Stephen Suggs to investigate the case. What they determined was that the doctor should have done a c-section no later than 9:00 PM on the day Lisa was admitted to the Hospital. By not doing a c-section, the doctor left Elizabeth in a place where she couldn’t get enough oxygen. Her heart had to bounce back from each contraction to pump oxygen to her organs. Eventually, even her brain wasn’t getting the oxygen it needed. When she was finally taken out of the bad situation the damage had been done. An expert in the field of economics established that her future medical expenses and lost earning capacity from her disabilities was 2.7 million dollars. She had a shrunken brain and was blind. Now 6 years old, Elizabeth can say about 6 words. She has seizures and Cerebral Palsy.

At trial the jury agreed with Lisa and Damon that the doctor should have saved Elizabeth when she had the chance. Janet, Jenner & Suggs, LLC, was privileged to represent this wonderful family, and was pleased they were able to provide adequate compensation for the child’s future needs.

Originally published July 31, 2009

By Kate Leckie
News-Post Staff

A Montgomery County Circuit Court jury has awarded a former Frederick couple $1.85 million for the wrongful death of their newborn son, their first child, according to court documents.
Benjamin Ketterman’s death resulted from Dr. Leonard Bienkowski’s decision to use vacuum extraction to deliver the baby July 5, 2005, at Frederick Memorial Hospital, lawyer Giles H. Manley said Thursday.

Benjamin died two days later at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, said Manley, who is also a board-certified obstetrician.

In addition to violating the standards of care, Bienkowski performed the procedure without explaining the risks to Benjamin’s parents, Sandra and John Ketterman, Manley said. Both were 27 when their son died.

Continue reading at FrederickNewsPost.com…

Maryland Association for Justice honors lawyers who fought double billing by HMOs

Robert K. Jenner of the Baltimore law firm of Janet, Jenner & Suggs, LLC was one of several lawyers named as the 2009 Trial Lawyers of the Year by the Maryland Association for Justice.

The Maryland Association for Justice honored Jenner as a member of a legal team that successfully pursued justice for thousands of customers who had been double-billed by their HMOs.

Also honored were: Paul Bland of Public Justice, the Washington-based national public interest law firm; Kiernon F. Quinn and Marty Wolf, both of Quinn, Gordon & Wolf in Baltimore; and Bruce Plaxen of Plaxen and Adler in Columbia, MD.

The winners were recognized at the organization’s annual President’s Party on May 8 in Baltimore. Each member of the team received a plaque commemorating the achievement.

Jenner and the other attorneys challenged HMOs in Maryland over their use of subrogation. Under the practice of subrogation, when a customer recovered damages from a party that injured them, the HMOs demanded a portion of the money from the recoveries.

Jenner and the other attorneys challenged this practice, saying it violated Maryland’s HMO Act and amounted to a double recovery. They successfully argued that the HMOs’ premiums already accounted for these sums and that Maryland’s HMO statute did not permit HMOs to obtain subrogation against their insureds.

The attorneys pressed cases against five major HMOs and won, recovering approximately $8 million for thousands of Maryland citizens.

After Maryland’s highest court ruled the HMOs had engaged in double billing, lobbyists for the medical providers persuaded the Maryland Legislature to pass a law that allowed HMOs to pursue subrogation claims within certain limits. The law included a retroactive provision that would have eliminated all liability for the HMOs for their earlier illegal subrogation.

The legal team sued to overturn the law, alleging the retroactive application was unconstitutional. In 2002, the Maryland Court of Appeals agreed.

“I’m particularly proud of our victory striking down the retroactive legislation,” Jenner said. “It was extremely unfair for the legislature to try to take away vested constitutional rights of Maryland consumers at the urging of the HMO lobby. The Court’s landmark ruling ensures that this kind of abuse will not happen again.”