Massachusetts Federal Court In Prescription Drug Case Holds “Learned Intermediary” Rule Requiring Warnings Only To Prescribing Physician Applied Even Though Patient and Caregiver Were Physicians, But Experts’ Affidavits of Inadequate Warnings Created Presumption Adequate Warning Would Have Been Heeded And Hence Triable Issue on Causation -
In Li Liu v. Boehringer Ingelheim Pharms. Inc., No. 14-13234, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8959 (D. Mass. Jan. 23, 2017), plaintiffs filed a wrongful death action in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts against the manufacturer and distributor of a prescription anticoagulant, which they alleged caused the 80-year old decedent’s death due to uncontrollable brain bleeding following a fall. Plaintiffs asserted negligence claims based on defective design and failure to warn. After being transferred for pre-trial management to a multi-district litigation in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, the case was remanded to the District of Massachusetts for further discovery and trial.
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