Settlement for Fleet Phospho-Soda Kidney Lawsuits Reached in Principal

An agreement in principal has been reached to settle Fleet Phospho-soda lawsuits filed by thousands of individuals who allegedly suffered kidney damage and other injuries after using the laxative at high doses for colonoscopy prep. However, a full and final settlement for the Fleet Phospho-soda cases is still pending additional negotiations with insurance carriers and some individual claimants.

According to a settlement order issued last week by U.S. District Judge Dan Aaron Polster, the Court intends to engage in a series of meetings with all of the parties involved to facilitate these ongoing negotiations. The first such meeting is scheduled for Monday morning at 8:30 a.m.

Judge Polster has asked that members of the Plaintiffs’ Executive Committee, Fleet executives, Chartis Insurance Company executives and lawyers involved in one Florida state court case appear with full settlement authority.

In January, Judge Polster ordered that all plaintiffs who have claims against C.B. Fleet Co. over problems with Fleet Phospho-soda submit information about their claims to be included in a global settlement that was being negotiated.

At that time, more than 1,200 Fleet Phospho-soda kidney lawsuits had been filed in various state and federal courts throughout the United States. All of the federal cases are consolidated in an MDL, or multidistrict litigation, which is centralized in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio.

Details of the proposed settlement for the Fleet Phospho-soda lawsuits have not yet been released, but it appears that most issues have been agreed upon.

All of the cases involve similar allegations that Fleet failed to adequately warn about the risk of kidney damage when double doses of Fleet Phospho-soda were used to clear out the bowels before a colonoscopy or other colon procedure. A Fleet Phospho-soda recall was issued in December 2008 after the FDA warned that the oral sodium phosphate solution should not be used as a bowel cleanser due to the risk of a rare form of kidney damage known as acute phosphate nephropathy.

Double doses of Fleet Phospho-soda were never approved by the FDA or determined to be safe. Side effects from Fleet Phospho-soda double doses have also been linked to kidney damage or renal disease, kidney failure and death.

Although Fleet Phospho-soda litigation dates back as far as 2004, most of the cases currently pending were filed in the wake of the December 2008 recall.

If no settlement for the lawsuits can be reached, prior case management orders suggested that the first Fleet Phospho-soda kidney damage trial could start as early as October 2010.