Winter v. Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp., No. 12-3121 (8th Cir. 2014)
Annotate this CasePlaintiff filed suit against Novartis alleging that Novartis negligently failed to provide adequate warnings for two drugs she took, Aredia and Zometa, after having two of her teeth extracted. Plaintiff developed osteonecrosis of the jaw (ONJ) after the extraction. Plaintiff was awarded $225,000 in compensatory damages and Novartis appealed. The court concluded that a jury could reasonably find that plaintiff's injury was the natural and probable consequence of Novartis's behavior and rejected Novartis's arguement that plaintiff did not establish that her injuries were proximately caused by inadequate warnings; the district court did not err in applying Missouri law where Missouri had the most significant relationship to the punitive damages claim; and Novartis correctly reasoned that the MedWatch checkmarks were inadmissible hearsay, out-of-court assertions offered for their truth but Novartis failed to demonstrate the prejudice required for a new trial. The court concluded, however, that the district court abused its discretion in awarding plaintiff full costs for depositions conducted as part of multi-district litigation. Accordingly, the court affirmed in Case No. 12-3121 and vacated in Case No. 12-3409.
Court Description: Civil case - Products Liability. Evidence was sufficient to support the jury's verdict that plaintiff's injuries were the natural and probable consequence of defendant's negligent failure to provide adequate warnings for its two drugs, Aredia and Zometa; the district court did not err in applying Missouri's punitive damages law, as Missouri had the most significant relationship to the claim; any error in the admission of information from the FDA's adverse event reporting program was harmless as the forms admitted were cumulative of other evidence that defendant knew of certain risks associated with the drugs; where litigation costs are incurred in connection with more than one proceeding, the court should allocate the costs, and the the court abused its discretion in awarding the entire amount of these costs in plaintiff's case.
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