The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has decided that nine lawsuits against the manufacturers of Zantac should be sent back to Connecticut state court. The lawsuits involve more than 850 individuals who developed cancer after using the recalled heartburn medication. The court ruled that these claims do not fall under federal jurisdiction, allowing them to be handled at the state level.
These cases are just a small portion of the Zantac lawsuits currently being pursued against various pharmaceutical companies. The lawsuits claim that consumers were not adequately warned about the risks associated with Zantac, specifically the high levels of the chemical byproduct NDMA, which is known to be a human carcinogen. Following a massive recall of Zantac in 2020, drug makers are facing claims from individuals who developed various types of cancer after using the medication.
Initially, the Zantac litigation was centralized in federal court, but all federal lawsuits were dismissed by Judge Robin L. Rosenberg due to the exclusion of expert witness testimony needed to prove that Zantac causes cancer. This ruling did not affect the thousands of claims being pursued in state courts across the country, including Connecticut. Plaintiffs argued that their claims should be handled at the state level, leading to the recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Although federal Zantac lawsuits have been dismissed, cases at the state level are ongoing. Some pharmaceutical companies, like Pfizer and Sanofi, have reached settlement agreements to resolve claims, while others, like GlaxoSmithKline and Boehringer Ingelheim, continue to defend the litigation. In Delaware state court, where a majority of the claims are pending, the judge recently allowed 75,000 lawsuits to move forward after deeming the expert witness testimony to be reliable for jury consideration.
