Scheduling Conferences in Tylenol Litigation Set Through Year’s End

The U.S. District Judge presiding over all Tylenol liver failure lawsuits filed in the federal court system has established a schedule for status conferences that will be held through the end of the year, with the parties and the Court meeting on a monthly basis as pretrial proceedings in the litigation get underway.

In April, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation consolidated all product liability lawsuits involving allegations that Johnson & Johnson failed to adequately warn about the risk of liver problems from Tylenol, centralizing cases brought nationwide before U.S. District Judge Lawrence F. Stengel in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

According to a case management order (PDF) issued July 11, status conferences will be held before Judge Stengel on August 22, September 24, October 22, November 19 and December 17. Lawyers appointed to leadership roles in the Tylenol litigation have been directed to submit joint written statements in advance of each conference, providing a status report and proposed agenda for each meeting.

Tylenol is a popular painkiller that has been widely used by millions of Americans, containing acetaminophen as the active pharmceutical ingredient. Side effects of acetaminophen have been linked to a risk of liver injury for decades, and the lawsuits allege that Johnson & Johnson and McNeil have withheld information from consumers about the risks associated with taking too much of the widely used pain killer.

While there are currently only a few dozen Tylenol cases pending before Judge Stengel, the number of lawsuits is expected to continue to grow as lawyers review and file additional cases for individuals who developed liver failure following an overdose of Tylenol.

All of the complaints involve similar claims that Johnson & Johnson built an image for their blockbuster medication as safe and effective by withholding important information about the link between Tylenol and liver problems.

The FDA has previously identified acetaminophen as the leading cause of liver injury in the United States. It has been suggested that more than 50,000 emergency room visits each year are caused by acetaminophen, including 25,000 hospitalizations and 450 deaths.

In recent years, there has been an increased effort to bring information about the risk of overdosing on acetaminophen to the public’s attention and to reduce the number of liver failure cases linked to the popular analgesic, which is also found in other pain killers and a number of cold medications. Earlier this month, yet another reminder was issued by the FDA about the potential liver risks with Tylenol and other acetaminophen products, indicating that consumers should be careful about taking too much acetaminophen or combining multiple products that contain the same active pharmaceutical ingredient.

Johnson & Johnson lowered the maximum recommended dosage on Tylenol and other acetaminophen-based products from 4,000 mg per day to 3,000 mg per day in 2011, after the FDA announced new limits on acetaminophen levels in prescription painkillers like Vicodin and Percocet.

Judge Stengel is presiding over pretrial proceedings in the Tylenol litigation, and it is expected that a series of early “bellwether” trials will be scheduled to help the parties gauge how juries are likely to respond to certain evidence or testimony that may be repeated throughout a large number of cases. The outcome of these proceedings may help facilitate individual settlement agreements for individuals who suffered liver failure from Tylenol. However, if a resolution is not reached following the MDL proceedings, each case may be remanded back to the U.S. District Court where it was originally filed for a separate trial date.