Plaintiff purchasers of traditional blood reagents, products that test the compatibility of donor blood with recipients, brought putative class actions claiming that two defendant companies conspired to fix prices in violation of antitrust law. Numerous lawsuits were consolidated in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (and one of the defendants subsequently settled with the plaintiffs). The district court found that plaintiffs had satisfied the requirements of ... Keep Reading »
Health Care Class Action Articles
The latest class action developments and trends in the health care industry, including news, key cases, and strategies.
Court Declines to Certify Class Alleging Off-Label Marketing of Cancer Drug
Third party payors ("TPPs") responsible for paying the costs of prescriptions for their beneficiaries sued Cephalon, Inc., alleging that it engaged in unlawful off-label marketing of Actiq, a drug approved to manage breakthrough cancer pain in certain patients. Plaintiffs argued that Cephalon's conduct caused plaintiffs to make excessive off-label prescription payments for Actiq to treat conditions not approved by the FDA and for whom less expensive pain management drugs ... Keep Reading »
GCs facing more bet-the-company and higher exposure class actions
Across industries, companies spent $2 billion on class action lawsuits in 2014, slightly less than the $2.1 billion they spent in 2013. This year, spending is expected to return to 2013 levels. Companies’ class action dockets increased on average by one new case in 2014, bringing the average number of class actions managed to five. This total is expected to remain constant in 2015, as the number of new matters is likely to be offset by those resolved. As before, ... Keep Reading »
Sixth Circuit Rejects Rule 23(F) Petition: Comcast Not Necessarily Triggered By Antitrust Class’s Use Of A Single Damages Model For Multiple Theories Of Liability
In an antitrust class action lawsuit, multiple theories of liability often create separable anticompetitive effects that, when combined, can result in aggregated damages, but a plaintiff's model must measure damages attributable only to the liability theory (and resulting anticompetitive effects) accepted for class action treatment. Thus, an antitrust lawsuit involving money damages cannot be certified to proceed as a class action unless the damages sought result from ... Keep Reading »
No Harm, No Standing: Texas Federal Court Dismisses Data Breach Class Action
Dismissing a class action based on a data breach, the Southern District of Texas added to the growing number of decisions that find an alleged risk of future identity theft due to a data breach is not an injury that creates standing to bring federal claims. The plaintiff, Beverly Peters, a former St. Joseph patient, brought a class action lawsuit against the medical provider after receiving notification that her personal information and protected health information had ... Keep Reading »
The Eleventh Circuit Declares that CAFA’s Amount-in-Controversy Requirement Can Be Satisfied In Declaratory Relief Cases
On February 14, 2014, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals held that the Class Action Fairness Act’s (CAFA) $5,000,000 amount-in-controversy requirement can be satisfied where the plaintiff seeks only declaratory relief. S. Fla. Wellness, Inc. v. Allstate Ins. Co., No. 14-10001, --- F.3d ---, 2014 WL 576111 (11th Cir. Feb. 14, 2014). A dispute arose when South Florida Wellness, a Florida-based healthcare provider, sought payment from Allstate for its treatment of an ... Keep Reading »