PA Supreme Court Denies Reassessment of First Hormone Replacement Therapy Tort Case in Philadelphia State Court
In what is being regarded by many as a controversial case, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has decided to leave its decision intact to not reconsider a woman’s hormone replacement therapy (HRT) tort case, which is the first of its kind to go to trial in Philadelphia state court. In Nelson v. Wyeth, the court decided that the plaintiff did not demonstrate proximate causation under the learned intermediary doctrine between her breast cancer and her physician prescribing a hormonal medication, Prempro, manufactured by Wyeth.
The Legal Intelligencer reports that a $3 million compensatory damages jury award that was established in February 2007 for the plaintiff was overturned by a trial judge. In response to the plaintiff’s petition for reconsideration in Nelson v. Wyeth, a per curiam order was entered by the Supreme Court in June 2010, and a denial of petition for allowance of appeal was first established in March. The decision was made despite the plaintiff’s argument that upholding the dismissal conflicts with succeeding case law in PA’s HRT litigation.
With approximately 1,500 HRT cases pending in Philadelphia, 26 cases have been ended in Wyeth’s favor and four plaintiffs’ verdicts are on appeal. Female plaintiff in HRT litigation claim that their breast cancer manifested after taking hormonal drugs intended to alleviate symptoms of menopause.
Michael Monheit is the managing lawyer at Monheit Law, outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He has practiced law since 1989. Michael Monheit was the managing attorney of the law offices of Herbert Monheit — now Silverman and Fodera — a firm... Michael Monheit→