Pfizer Requests Depo-Provera Lawsuit Coordination as Mass Tort in Pennsylvania State Court

About 100 women are expected to refile Depo shot lawsuits in Philadelphia, each raising similar allegations that the birth control injection caused the development of meningioma brain tumors.

Pfizer wants all Depo-Provera brain tumor lawsuits filed in the Pennsylvania court system to be consolidated before one state judge for coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings, which would likely also be coordinated with hundreds of similar claims being pursued at the federal level.

The manufacturer’s Depo-Provera birth control injections and generic versions of the shots have been on the market for more than 30 years, and millions of women have received them to help prevent pregnancy. 

However, concerns over Depo-Provera brain tumor side effects began to emerge last year, after studies detected a link between meningioma and Depo-Provera, with researchers now indicating that some women could face more than five times the risk of developing brain tumors.

As a result of these findings, nearly 350 lawsuits have been filed in federal courts nationwide, each raising similar allegations that users and the medical community were not adequately warned about the risks associated with Depo-Provera injections. While there have only been two such lawsuits filed in Pennsylvania state courts, one of those complaints involves 100 different plaintiffs, and the drug maker expects the size and scope of the litigation to grow substantially in the coming months.

On May 29, Pfizer filed a motion to consolidate existing Depo-Provera lawsuits (PDF), and any such future claims filed in Pennsylvania state court, as part of a Mass Tort Program. The request was made with the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, which must now decide whether consolidation would serve the convenience of the Court, parties and witnesses, and whether it would work to prevent duplicative discovery and contradicting rulings.

All of the plaintiffs except for one were severed and dismissed from the 100-plaintiff claim, and Pfizer indicates that it expects many of those claims to be refiled as independent lawsuits in the state court system.

Plaintiffs have not yet filed a response indicating whether or not they support Pfizer’s request, and it is unclear when the state courts will respond to the request.

Federal Depo-Provera Brain Tumor Lawsuits

In February, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation established a Depo-Provera meningioma MDL (multidistrict litigation) at the federal level, centralizing claims brought in U.S. District Courts nationwide in the Northern District of Florida, where District Judge M. Casey Rodgers has been appointed to oversee coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings.

While the number of federal claims continues to grow, Judge Rodgers is already preparing the litigation for early test trials. She has selected a small group of pilot cases to be prepared to go before juries by the end of 2026 or early 2027.

While the outcomes of these trials will not be binding on other Depo-Provera lawsuits, they will give the parties a chance to see how jurors respond to arguments and testimony that will be repeated throughout the litigation, which may help the parties reach Depo-Provera settlement agreements.

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