Congratulations to HGD attorney Christopher B. Hood on his latest victory in the Alabama Supreme Court. On Friday, January 11th, the Supreme Court ruled that our client Danny Weeks could sue a brand‑name drug company over injuries he suffered from the generic version of a brand drug. Mr. Hood and HGD senior partner Lew Garrison and partner Bill Bross represent Mr. Weeks.
Mr. Weeks alleges that he developed tardive dyskinesia from taking a generic version of the acid reflux drug Reglan. The Supreme Court, in its decision Friday, summarized his claims this way:
“. . . Weeks filed this action against five current and former drug manufacturers for injuries that Mr. Weeks allegedly suffered as a result of his long‑term use of the prescription drug product metoclopramide, which is the generic form of the brand‑name drug Reglan.® The Weekses claim that two companies ‑‑ Teva Pharmaceuticals USA and Actavis Elizabeth, LLC ‑‑ manufactured and sold the generic metoclopramide that Mr. Weeks ingested. The Weekses concede that Mr. Weeks did not ingest any Reglan® manufactured by the three brandname defendants, Wyeth LLC, Pfizer Inc., and Schwarz Pharma, Inc. The Weekses nonetheless assert that the brand‑name defendants are liable for Mr. Weeks’s harm on fraud, misrepresentation, and/or suppression theories because they at different times manufactured or sold brand‑name Reglan® and purportedly either misrepresented or failed adequately to warn Mr. Weeks or his physician about the risks of using Reglan® long‑term.”
In siding with our client, the Supreme Court reasoned that “an omission or defect in the labeling for the brand‑name drug would necessarily be repeated in the generic labeling, foreseeably causing harm to a patient who ingested the generic product.”
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The New York Times published an extensive article on the decision. Click here to see it. It appeared January 12, 2013, NYT page B3, headlined “Man Taking Generic Drug Can Sue Branded Maker.”
