Lawyers in Suboxone Dental Lawsuits To Meet With MDL Judge for Status Conference

Problems collecting prescription and dental records continue to impact pretrial proceedings in thousands of Suboxone tooth decay lawsuits, which could delay trial preparations and settlement negotiations.

The U.S. District Judge presiding over more than 11,000 Suboxone dental lawsuits will meet with lawyers involved in the litigation today, to discuss the progress obtaining documentation needed to move forward with a series of early trial dates, which may guide future settlement negotiations.

Suboxone (buprenorphine and naloxone) is a widely used medication designed to help individuals avoid opioid withdrawal symptoms while undergoing drug addiction therapy, which was originally introduced in a tablet form in 2002. The drug’s manufacturer, Indivior, later introduced a filmstrip version, which users place under their tongue until it dissolves. However, that design change has since been linked to widespread dental problems among users.

Each of the product liability lawsuits raise similar allegations, indicating that Reckitt Benkiser, and its Indivior subsidiary, failed to adequately warn consumers that those new Suboxone film strips could erode tooth enamel, causing devastating dental damage.

The largest number of claims are referred to as Schedule A cases, which were all filed before the two-year statute of limitations, or the deadline for filing a lawsuit from the time one reasonably should have known that the drug or product was the cause of their injuries. The clock started ticking on many of the Suboxone dental lawsuits in 2022, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) required new Suboxone tooth decay warnings for the film strips’ warning label, following hundreds of complaints involving dental damage. 

Given common questions raised in claims brought throughout the federal court system, all of the Suboxone dental lawsuits have been consolidated as a multi-district litigation under U.S. District Judge Philip Calabrese in the Northern District for Ohio, who is leading the litigation through coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings.

Early in the litigation, Judge Calabrese indicated that the parties should focus on preparing a small group of cases for “bellwether” test trials, which will help the parties and court see how juries are likely to respond to evidence and testimony that would be repeated throughout the litigation.

The Court previously designated 500 Schedule A cases for a “Records Collection Pool,” with the goal of having each plaintiff produce records so that the parties can then narrow that group down to 100 representative cases that will be eligible for the next phase of discovery.

The parties are scheduled to meet with Judge Calabrese today to discuss the status of the records collection pool discovery process, according to a Joint Agenda (PDF) submitted on Friday. In addition, each party submitted their own report on the status of all of the Schedule A cases, indicating that there are 8,164 such claims out of more than 11,000 Suboxone dental lawsuits in all.

According to the Plaintiffs’ Leadership Committee report (PDF), that is a decrease from 8,333 claims due to the removal of 169 lawsuits for various reasons.

Suboxone Pharmacy Record Collection Problems Persist

Throughout the litigation, the parties have indicated they were having trouble collecting patient records from a number of pharmacies, which have refused to respond to direct requests from Suboxone dental lawsuit lawyers and individual plaintiffs.

Judge Calabrese attempted to address the issue in February 2025, by issuing an order requiring Suboxone prescription records to be produced within 30 days after a pharmacy received a proper request. When the problem continued, he ordered several pharmacies to have their custodian of records appear for a show-cause hearing late last month.

However, defendants’ status report (PDF) claims that the problem persists as of September 5, noting they have sent 3,755 records requests to various medical providers, but have only substantially completed record collection for three plaintiffs.

“Defendants continue to encounter issues relating to healthcare noncompliance with Case Management Order No. 13. Most of these issues concern facilities which require proprietary authorizations and/or state that the authorization provided does not meet the requirements of applicable state or federal law.”

– Defendants’ Report on Record Collection

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) sets strict national standards on accessing Protected Health Information (PHI). Generally, most medical offices will lean toward not releasing a patient’s PHI if there is any uncertainty about their legal ability to do so.

Suboxone Dental Lawsuit Bellwether Trials

Once the discovery process is complete, a number of claims will be selected for bellwether trials. While the outcome of these trials will not be binding on other plaintiffs, they will be closely watched to see how jurors may respond to a typical claim.

The results of those claims could help the parties in negotiations to reach a settlement agreement, which would prevent the need for thousands of time-consuming and expensive individual federal trials.

However, if no Suboxone dental lawsuit settlement is reached, Judge Calabrese could begin remanding thousands of individual claims to their originating court for individual trial dates.