Supreme Court may prohibit lawsuits for FDA-approved devices
Dec. 4—Medtronic and other medical-device makers today will attempt to obtain protection from multimillion-dollar product liability lawsuits in a case before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court justices will hear Riegel v. Medtronic, on whether patients can file product-liability lawsuits over devices cleared for sale by the FDA’s approval process.
Previously, a federal appeals court barred a suit from a New York man who claimed he suffered permanent injury when a Medtronic heart catheter burst during an angioplasty. The lower court's approach would undercut thousands of lawsuits, and such a ruling might also shield the Minneapolis-based Medtronic from suits over its withdrawn Fidelis defibrillator wires, according to Bloomberg.
Edward E. Angwin, a lawyer from Birmingham, Ala., who is suing the New Brunswick, N.J.-based Johnson & Johnson over its Duragesic pain-killing patch, told Bloomberg that there is “significant concern that the court's ruling may alter the landscape and make it either impossible or difficult to bring these claims.”
The Supreme Court justices will hear Riegel v. Medtronic, on whether patients can file product-liability lawsuits over devices cleared for sale by the FDA’s approval process.
Previously, a federal appeals court barred a suit from a New York man who claimed he suffered permanent injury when a Medtronic heart catheter burst during an angioplasty. The lower court's approach would undercut thousands of lawsuits, and such a ruling might also shield the Minneapolis-based Medtronic from suits over its withdrawn Fidelis defibrillator wires, according to Bloomberg.
Edward E. Angwin, a lawyer from Birmingham, Ala., who is suing the New Brunswick, N.J.-based Johnson & Johnson over its Duragesic pain-killing patch, told Bloomberg that there is “significant concern that the court's ruling may alter the landscape and make it either impossible or difficult to bring these claims.”