Lawyers To Select 50 Suboxone Dental Lawsuits for Next Phase of MDL Bellwether Discovery

Initial group of 500 Suboxone tooth decay lawsuits selected for a record collection pool will be narrowed down to 15 claims that will be eligible for the first “bellwether” test trials in the federal MDL.

The U.S. District Judge presiding over all Suboxone dental lawsuits filed in federal courts nationwide has outlined the process for the parties to select a group of 50 claims that will serve as a “Core Discovery Pool” in the bellwether process, from which cases will ultimately be chosen to serve as early test trials.

The choices will come from a pool of 500 Suboxone tooth decay claims that were randomly selected earlier this year for a “records collection pool,” representing just a fraction of the 11,000 product liability lawsuits currently pending in the federal court system against the makers of the opioid addiction treatment. 

Each of the lawsuits raise similar allegations, indicating that users were not adequately warned about the link between Suboxone and dental injuries, including a risk that the sublingual film version of the drug may erode enamel and cause devastating tooth decay problems.

Suboxone (buprenorphine and naloxone) was first introduced in 2002, and originally sold in tablet form to help users avoid withdrawal symptoms while undergoing therapy to help them break their addiction. However, the product’s manufacturer, Indivior, subsequently introduced a filmstrip version, which users place beneath their tongue until it dissolves.

Shortly after the design change, Indivior and federal health officials began receiving reports of dental damage and decay, resulting in Suboxone tooth decay side effects being added to the drug’s warning label in June 2022. However, plaintiffs in the lawsuits allege that they may have avoided Suboxone dental problems if earlier warnings and information had been provided about steps that could be taken while using the drug.

Given common issues of fact and law raised in claims filed throughout the federal court system, all federal Suboxone dental lawsuits are currently centralized as part of a multidistrict litigation (MDL) in the Northern District of Ohio, where U.S. District Judge Philip Calabrese is overseeing coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings.

As the size of the litigation continues to grow, Judge Calabrese has called on the parties to identify a small group of representative tooth loss claims, which will serve as bellwether test cases for early jury trials and promote potential Suboxone settlement talks to resolve the litigation as a whole.

Suboxone Dental Lawsuit Core Discovery Pool

In March, Judge Calabrese announced the random selection of 500 Suboxone tooth decay lawsuits to serve as a “Records Collection Pool,” where the parties are currently exchanging documents that establish use of Suboxone film and the extent of dental injuries experienced. 

To help narrow the pool to a smaller group that will go through case-specific discovery, Judge Calabrese issued an amended case management order for bellwether protocols (PDF) on May 19, indicating that 100 of the Records Collection Pool cases will be randomly selected for inclusion in a “Core Discovery Pool,” which will then be cut in half to a total of 50 claims.

After the initial 100 Core Discovery Pool cases are identified,  each side will have the opportunity to select 15 cases to move forward, and the court will randomly select 20 additional claims from the list, resulting in 50 claims that will move forward.

Judge Calabrese indicates that 15 of those claims will eventually be selected to serve as the “Trial Pool Cases,” with each side selecting five claims each, and the Court will select five cases randomly. Those claims will be eligible to be the first Suboxone dental lawsuit jury trials, but the order does not set firm dates for the remaining selection process.

While the outcome of these early Suboxone trial dates in the MDL will not have any binding impact on remaining claims, the average payouts awarded by juries may have a significant impact on future Suboxone settlements the drug maker may offer to avoid the need for each individual lawsuit to go before a jury in the future.

According to minutes and orders (PDF) issued on May 19, the next status conference will be held on June 17, where parties will discuss outstanding discovery and case management issues. Judge Calabrese has requested the parties submit an agenda by June 13.