Suboxone Lawyers Report on Status of Lawsuits Over Tooth Decay, Dental Damage

Parties are preparing for another influx of Suboxone claims seeking to beat statute of limitations deadlines, as they continue to exchange information about thousands of tooth decay lawsuits already filed.

The U.S. District Judge presiding over all Suboxone tooth decay lawsuits will meet with lawyers involved in the cases today to discuss the status of the growing litigation brought by former uses of the opioid addiction treatment.

There are currently more than 11,000 product liability lawsuits being pursued in the federal court system, each raising similar allegations that users were left with devastating dental damage from Suboxone film strips, which were introduced in 2010 and have been found to degrade tooth enamel, resulting in lost or broken teeth, as well as the need for substantial dental work.

The lawsuits began to be filed after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) required new Suboxone tooth decay warnings in June 2022, alleging that plaintiffs could have avoided dental damage if the manufacturers had provided adequate and earlier warnings about risks associated with the treatment.

A little more than a year ago, all Suboxone tooth decay lawsuits were centralized as part of a federal multidistrict litigation (MDL) under U.S. District Judge Philip Calabrese, who is overseeing coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings in the Northern District of Ohio.

Shortly after the Suboxone MDL was established, a potential deadline for individuals living in states with a two-year statute of limitations led to an influx of new claims that needed to be filed in June 2024. To avoid overwhelming the court, Judge Calabrese allowed the filing of one bundled Suboxone lawsuit, known as the Schedule A cases, which included about 9,600 individuals who were still gathering documentation to support their claims.

To promote potential Suboxone tooth decay settlements or another resolution for the litigation, Judge Calabrese has called on the parties to help identify a small group of Suboxone dental injury claims that are representative of the litigation as a whole, to serve as bellwether test cases for early jury trials.

Suboxone Litigation Status Report

At a status conference today, lawyers are expected to update the court on the progress of the litigation and ongoing discovery issues in the litigation. 

The parties submitted a joint agenda (PDF) for today’s hearing on March 7, indicating they would like to review protocols for conducting a census of all cases in the litigation, criteria for selection of bellwether cases, and the status of discovery.

In addition, the Plaintiffs’ Leadership Committee issued a report (PDF) on the same day, indicating that they are continuing to work through Schedule A cases, to determine if each of those claims brought shortly before a potential two year statute of limitations, have sufficient evidence to proceed in the litigation. According to the report, the number of Schedule A complaints has been reduced to 8,611 in recent weeks.

However, the parties expect another influx of Suboxone lawsuits to be brought this summer, as the three-year anniversary of the FDA warning approaches. While the Schedule A cases were linked to states with two-year statute of limitations for filing of civil claims, there is likely to be a sharp increase in cases this summer for states with three-year statute of limitation laws.

Judge Calabrese has suggested that the Court will not authorize another bundled complaint, since there is sufficient time for lawyers to investigate and vet potential claims prior to this deadline.

Throughout 2025, it is expected that the court will continue to push the parties to identify a small group of lawsuits, which raise allegations representative of others in the litigation, to prepare for a series of early trial dates.

While the outcome of these early bellwether 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 tooth decay settlements the drug maker may offer to avoid the need for each individual lawsuit to go before a jury in the future.