Proposed Depo-Provera Lawsuit Schedule Calls for First Trial in Dec. 2026

First trial will involve claims brought by a woman who experienced vertigo, dizziness and hearing loss after the development of a meningioma brain tumor caused by Depo-Provera birth control shots.

Lawyers involved in the federal Depo-Provera litigation have submitted a proposed schedule, which calls for the first in a series of bellwether trials to get underway on December 7, 2026, as part of an early effort by the court to help gauge how juries may respond to evidence and testimony likely to be repeated throughout thousands of lawsuits alleging the popular birth control shot caused meningioma brain tumors to develop.

First approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1992, Depo-Provera is a long-acting hormonal contraceptive requiring quarterly injections of the synthetic progestin medroxyprogesterone acetate to prevent pregnancy. Some estimates suggest 25% of U.S. women aged 18 through 49 have received at least one injection.

However, studies published in 2024 linked Depo-Provera to meningioma side effects, suggesting women who received the injections faced more than a five-fold increased risk of developing brain tumors when compared to women who did not take the shot. Known as intracranial meningioma, these kinds of tumors can cause potentially life-threatening complications, frequently requiring brain surgery and life-long medical monitoring.

More than 2,100 women or their families have now filed Depo-Provera lawsuits against Pfizer and generic manufacturers of the shot. Each raises similar allegations, indicating that the drug makers placed a desire for profits before the health and safety of women, by failing to adequately disclose information about the link between Depo-Provera and meningioma.

In late 2025, the FDA appeared to back the women’s concerns by approving an updated Depo-Provera brain tumor warning, adding new language to the drug’s label to alert users to the risk of intracranial meningioma. The update called for patients to be monitored for brain tumors and recommended the birth control medication be discontinued at the signs of meningioma development or growth.

All federal Depo-Provera lawsuits have been centralized in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida before Judge M. Casey Rodgers, for coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings.

Shortly after being assigned the litigation, Judge Rodgers announced the selection of five “pilot” lawsuits that will serve as early test cases to help gauge how juries may respond to certain evidence and testimony, and test the relative strengths and weaknesses of each side’s arguments. She has previously indicated that the Court wants the first Depo-Provera bellwether trial ready by the first or second week of December 2026, with the rest of the trials scheduled to begin in January 2027.

In advance of a regularly scheduled case management conference today, the parties submitted a joint agenda (PDF) this week, which proposes that the first trial should begin on December 7, 2026.

The parties have agreed that the first Depo-Provera trial should involve a lawsuit filed by Donna Toney of Florida, who indicates she suffered vertigo, dizziness and hearing loss due to a brain tumor caused by her birth control injections, resulting in the need for brain surgery.

The joint schedule calls for fact discovery to close by August 14, 2026, summary judgment motions to be submitted by October 2, and a final pretrial conference to be held on November 20.

These pilot trials will be closely watched to see how juries respond to evidence and testimony that would likely be repeated in thousands of cases if the litigation is not otherwise resolved. However, if no Depo-Provera brain tumor settlement agreement is reached, Judge Rodgers may remand the remaining claims back to their originating District Courts for individual trial dates.

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