Lawsuits Alleging Chantix Side Effects Mount in Court

Lawsuits Alleging Chantix Side Effects Mount in Court

By Michael Carlin

Thousands of cases have been filed against Pfizer in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama alleging that Chantix caused severe and unexpected side effects. With this many lawsuits over a single common cause the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, JPML determined that the cases would benefit by consolidation into a Multi District Litigation (MDL) centered in Alabama.

MDLs offer significant advantages for both plaintiffs and defendants. By consolidating and coordinating federal cases into one court the parties can facilitate discovery by only requiring the defendant to produce documents once when requested. Additionally witnesses for the company only need to be deposed once. The court’s ability to review the bulk of cases also provides it with enough information about the typical issues that arise to provide consistent rulings. Judges overseeing MDLs like Chantix are also more willing to devote the time and resources necessary to resolve difficult legal issues when thousands of cases will be affected.

When an MDL case is consolidated the then parties proceed through discovery to determine the relevant factual issues for trial in a handful of bellwether cases. These bellwether cases serve to promote global settlement of claims by providing meaningful information for how common issues will likely be resolved by the finder of fact. Although bellwether trials do not provide binding decisions on all claims, they do provide a testing ground for determining how juries will decide similar claims and damage awards.