Suboxone Injury Lawyers Reappointed to Leadership Roles in Federal MDL

As the litigation heads into its second year, lawyers are filtering through information and records of Suboxone tooth decay in thousands of individual lawsuits to find potential bellwether cases.

A group of nearly 30 Suboxone injury lawyers have been re-appointed to serve in leadership positions for at least another year, taking certain actions during the coordinated pretrial proceedings that benefit thousands of plaintiffs pursuing claims over severe tooth decay and dental damage caused by the opioid addiction treatment.

Reckitt Benkiser, and its Indivior subsidiary, currently face more than 11,000 Suboxone tooth decay lawsuits, each raising similar allegations that users were not adequately warned about the risk that the sublingual film version of the drug could erode tooth enamel, causing devastating dental damage.

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

However, the FDA added Suboxone tooth decay warnings to the medication on June 17, 2022, following hundreds of complaints involving tooth loss. Plaintiffs are now pursuing damages, indicating that the manufacturer knew, or should have known about the dental decay risks sooner, yet failed to adequately warn about the risks associated with enamel erosion from Suboxone film strips.

In February 2024, complaints filed throughout the federal court system were consolidated as part of a Suboxone lawsuit MDL (multidistrict litigation), with U.S. District Judge Philip Calabrese appointed to preside over coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings in the Northern District of Ohio.

About a month after the MDL was formed, Judge Calabrese appointed 20 Suboxone injury lawyers to serve in various leadership positions on behalf of all plaintiffs. In addition, in August 2024, the judge appointed an additional group of attorneys to serve on a Leadership Development Committee, designed to mentor younger attorneys on the MDL process.

As the litigation heads into its second year, a case management order (PDF) was issued on July 2, reappointing the attorneys to continue serving in those positions for another year.

The reappointment came in advance of a meeting with Judge Calabrese that will be held today. According to a joint agenda (PDF) released on July 11, during the case management conference the parties will discuss the status of a record collection pool, as well as the state of bellwether discovery and defendant-centered discovery. Defendants also issued a report (PDF) on the same day, providing the Court with an update on the status of its discovery process ahead of the conference.

The Suboxone injury lawyers serving in leadership roles in the MDL will continue coordinating status updates for the court, arguing certain pretrial motions, conducting discovery and depositions into common issues that impact all claims, and potentially negotiating a framework for Suboxone tooth decay settlements that may help resolve large numbers of claims. However, each individual plaintiff still retains their own lawyer to meet various deadlines and establish that they meet the criteria for Suboxone injury lawsuit payout.

Suboxone Injury Lawsuit Bellwether Trials

As part of the coordinated pretrial proceedings, lawyers are working to weed through a group of 500 cases serving as a “Records Collection Pool”, with the goal of having Suboxone injury lawyers and defendants narrow the group down to 100 representative cases that will be eligible for the next phase of discovery.

The bellwether pool will then later be narrowed down to 15, which will be eligible for the first bellwether trials. The Court is expected to randomly choose five of those 15 Suboxone lawsuits to set for trial, which will be designed to gauge how juries are likely to respond to evidence and expert testimony expected to be commonly used throughout the litigation.

While the outcome of these bellwether Suboxone trials will not have any binding impact on remaining claims, the average payouts awarded by juries may have a significant impact on future Suboxone settlements. However, if no settlement or other resolution is achieved during the pretrial proceedings, Judge Calabrese is likely to remand the cases back to their originating federal districts for individual trial dates.

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