Levaquin lawsuits against Johnson & Johnson are finally going to make it into the courtroom. State and federal court Levaquin trials have finally been scheduled to begin in April and May.
More than 2,500 lawsuits have already been filed amid claims that drug giant didn’t properly research its medication before putting it on the market, and that the company didn’t properly warn the public or medical staff of the drug’s link to tendon damage.
Right now, there are 1,512 lawsuits pending in New Jersey state court alone, and 990 are pending in federal court. The federal court lawsuits have been centralized during the pretrial process (in a multi-district litigation—MDL) in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota that will be presided over by U.S. District Judge John Tunheim.
It was during a recent status conference that the trial dates were agreed upon by both parties in the lawsuits. The Levaquin trial that is set to happen in a New Jersey state court is scheduled to start as early as April 11, 2011, and is expected to last at least four to six weeks. The federal court trial that is part of the MDL will begin on May 31, 2011. There is still another case that is scheduled to go trial on September 12, 2011, in California state court; however, that case date may change in the future.
To date, only one Levaquin lawsuit has been settled. The lawsuit was filed by John Schedin, who was alleging that Levaquin caused his tendon ruptures. He won $1.8 million in the federal court back in December 2010. The verdicts in the next couple of trials may set the precedent for future Levaquin cases and how they will be judged, and will likely have all of the new litigants watching closely.