What the Newly Selected “Pilot Cases” Mean for Depo-Provera Lawsuits
Editors carefully fact-check all Consumer Notice, LLC content for accuracy and quality.
Consumer Notice, LLC has a stringent fact-checking process. It starts with our strict sourcing guidelines.
We only gather information from credible sources. This includes peer-reviewed medical journals, reputable media outlets, government reports, court records and interviews with qualified experts.
Litigation involving the growing number of Depo-Provera lawsuits is well underway. A total of 78 cases involving the birth control shot and its possible ties to tumors are now consolidated in multidistrict litigation (MDL).
Judge M. Casey Rodgers, who is overseeing the cases, has taken an unusual approach to the lawsuits. This approach could potentially lead to faster and more efficient results.
Shortly after the formation of the MDL, which allows similar cases to move through the legal process together more efficiently, Judge Rodgers announced that she had selected five “pilot cases” from the 78 pending lawsuits to be the main focus of the MDL.
“The work of the MDL will be accomplished through the Pilot cases,” she stated in a court order. “… Common issues and defenses will be identified and ruled on early, and subsequent case specific discovery will essentially provide a vetting opportunity for the litigation that will narrow the issues for the entire MDL.”
This is an unusual move that breaks with the normal MDL process. Usually, a group of cases called bellwethers are selected to go to trial following input from both plaintiffs and defendants.
Bellwether trials essentially serve as test cases. Their outcomes give both sides a sense of where the litigation is heading. If plaintiffs see big wins in the bellwether trials, for example, the defendant may opt to negotiate a settlement with all remaining plaintiffs instead of continuing to pursue individual cases.
But the bellwether process can also take a very long time and often becomes a bottleneck in the MDL process. The exact method of picking bellwethers differs depending on the situation, but it can be contentious as both plaintiffs and defendants jostle to try to get their strongest cases selected.
Disputes over bellwether trial selection can last years in some cases.
But it appears that the Depo-Provera lawsuits will largely circumvent that lengthy process. Discovery for the five pilot cases is already set to begin at the end of this month.
Depo-Provera Lawsuits Center on Claims of Brain Tumor Risk
Depo-Provera lawsuits have been filed by people who claim that they developed brain tumors after taking the drug.
A study that was published in the journal BMJ last March found that Depo-Provera users could be at a significantly higher risk of developing meningiomas. Meningiomas are tumors that form in the linings covering the brain.
According to Mayo Clinic, they are slow-growing and can steadily increase in size for years before causing symptoms.
Meningiomas are usually benign but can still be very serious and have significant impacts on the patients’ health.
One lawsuit filed on behalf of Kathleen Fazio stated that she began having headaches, disorientation and memory issues after using Depo-Provera for years. She was diagnosed with a meningioma that had to be removed via surgery. However, she was left with a diminished sense of taste and smell along with vision issues following complications from the procedure.
The Depo-Provera warning label in the U.S. does not mention a meningioma risk. One claim the lawsuits stress is that the Canadian, U.K. and European Union versions of the label all mention the tumor.
Editor Lindsay Donaldson contributed to this article.