Lawsuit Over Bladder Cancer from Actos Remanded to California Court

A California man has won a battle to keep his Actos lawsuit over bladder cancer in California state court, which could impact dozens of other cases involved in the Actos litigation. 

Last week, U.S. Federal District Judge William Alsup issued an order granting a request filed by Jerry Hill to have his Actos complaint against Takeda Pharmaceuticals remanded back to state court, keeping his case out of the federal Actos MDL.

Takeda Pharmaceuticals removed the lawsuit to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in November, on the basis of federal diversity jurisdiction.

If the case had stayed in the federal court system, it would have been transferred to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, where all federal lawsuits over bladder cancer from Actos have been consolidated for pretrial proceedings as part of an MDL, or multidistrict litigation.

Hill, who was diagnosed with bladder cancer after taking Actos for more than four years, successfully argued to return the case to state court because a California-based Takeda subsidiary, known as Takeda San Diego (TSD), participated in the testing of Actos during development of the diabetes drug, which created a reasonable possibility of liability under state law.

The ruling will likely impact a number of other lawsuits over Actos and bladder cancer filed in California state court.

Last month, the Actos litigation in California was centralized before Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Carl J. West for pretrial proceedings. Takeda opposed the centralization of those cases, arguing that they intended to file a motion to transfer all of the California Actos cases to the federal MDL. However, Judge Alsup’s order in the Hill lawsuit supports the position of plaintiffs, who have maintained that they have a legitimate basis for keeping the cases in state court.

In addition to California, a number of Actos lawsuits have been filed in other state court systems, spreading the litigation against Takeda over a number of courts. Last month, at least three couples filed an Actos lawsuit in Illinois in Madison County, on the basis that Takeda is based in Deerfield, Illinois.

All of the complaints over bladder cancer from Actos filed in state and federal courts throughout the United States raise similar allegations that Takeda knew or reasonably should have known that long-term Actos use increased the risk of bladder cancer. Despite the known risk, users allege that Takeda failed to provide adequate Actos bladder cancer warnings for consumers or the medical community.