When plaintiff Laura Tenorio filed her Yaz lawsuit in the Superior Court of the State of California, County of Los Angeles on September 1, 2011, she likely wasn’t expecting that her case would be joined by many other similar lawsuits. But that is exactly what happened when Tenorio used her lawsuit as a means of holding Bayer, the makers of Yaz, liable for her blood clots. Her case joined several coordinated lawsuits there, with plaintiffs alleging serious side effects like Yaz blood clots, Yaz pulmonary embolism and Yaz gallbladder disease.
When Tenorio filed her case, the case was then removed to the multidistrict litigation (MDL) that is being held in the Southern District of Illinois, which just happens to be the same location that the first bellwether trial was placed on hold pending mediation. Tenorio’s complaint basically states that she developed blood clots after taking Yaz and that Bayer didn’t properly warn her of the dangers linked to the drug before she took it. Because of this failure on the company’s part, Tenorio claims that she suffered from serious physical injuries. Tenorio is suing for “medical expenses, general damage, and loss of earning capacity.”
Tenorio’s case was added to the MDL because “it satisfies both diversity of citizenship and amount in controversy. The court determined that the amount in controversy exceeds the required $75,000.” With Bayer’s stubborn insistence that its dropirenone-based birth control pills (Yaz, Yasmin) are no more dangerous than other non-dropirenone-based pills, despite the studies that prove the opposite, these lawsuits will only continue to magnify. Even the FDA had reviewed the blood clot risks linked to Yaz and decided to strengthen the warnings on the labels, but this effort just isn’t enough for the countless women who have battled debilitating illnesses and even death after taking these dangerous pills.
