Now that the Supreme Court has made its ruling with regards to generic drug company liability, many people are now wondering what that will mean insofar as settlements are concerned for the victims of Reglan side effects.
A lot of people were counting on generic drug makers being held liable for needing to post warnings on their medication labels so that patients can be forewarned about possible side effects. However, since the Supreme Court upheld the decision not to hold the companies liable, it has many wondering how that will affect settlements. Right now, that answer is still up in the air as none of the current Reglan lawsuits has gone to trial since the decision was handed down. The only good thing that may have come out about the Supreme Court’s decision is that it was by a vote of 5-4 for the defendant, with many of the justices siding with the plaintiffs.
Actually, the majority Supreme Court Justices have admitted that they think the ruling in favor of Pliva, makers of generic Reglan, is unfair to the people who have taken the generic version and suffered from tardive dyskinesia because of it. Their decision basically removed accountability from the actual makers of the drugs and pushed it onto the brand name drug makers instead. That just seems wrong to many people who think that it gives generic drug companies a “get out of warning label settlement free” card.
The ruling from the justices showed that “the federal law holding brand name drug makers accountable for side effects pre-empts, or trumps, state law that requires generic makers adequately warn about the risk of side effects.” That is just not acceptable. Generic drug makers should have to account for the drugs they push onto the public.
