Notable 2007 Jury Verdicts: Nevada woman wins $47.6 million in hormone therapy case

Three Nevada women won the biggest verdict to date in the ongoing hormone replacement therapy litigation against Wyeth, convincing a jury that the company knew its drugs caused breast cancer but failed to warn patients about the risks.
The Reno, Nev., jury awarded a total of $35 million in compensatory damages and $99 million in punitives to the three women.
The plaintiffs – who took Wyeth’s Prempro, Premarin or both for several years – argued that the drug maker “deliberately failed to test the drugs, and instead promoted them, purposely minimizing the risk,” said their attorney, Zoe Littlepage of Houston, who is lead counsel in the HRT multi-district litigation.
According to Littlepage, Wyeth claimed that it didn’t believe any additional studies were needed and that it did everything the Food and Drug Administration instructed it to do.
She said the most important evidence came from Wyeth’s own documents, which indicate that the company knew there was a risk of breast cancer associated with its drug but refused to complete studies to evaluate the link.
Madison, N.J.-based Wyeth is facing more than 5,000 suits nationwide over its hormone replacement therapy drugs.
Prempro, which contains the hormones estrogen and progestin, was first sold in 1995. Some of the suits have also involved Pfizer, which manufactures Provera, another hormone replacement therapy drug that contains a progesterone replacement. Many women have taken Wyeth’s Premarin in combination with Provera.
The current wave of litigation arose after a study in July 2002, known as the Women’s Health Initiative, found that using Prempro for five years increased the risk of breast cancer by 26 percent, heart attacks by 29 percent, strokes by 41 percent and blood clots by 113 percent.
While the verdict is heartening to plaintiffs’ attorneys, in several states smaller plaintiffs’ verdicts have been overturned, key documents have not been allowed into evidence and judges have ruled that the statute of limitations begins to run when the plaintiff was diagnosed, not when the 2002 study alerted them to the connection between HRT medications and cancer.
In this case, the jury initially awarded $135 million in compensatory damages. But when the judge informed them it’s improper to use compensatory damages to punish a company, they reduced the compensatory award and awarded $99 million in the punitive phase of the trial – bringing the total award close to the original $135 million.
Wyeth has appealed the verdict.
“This flawed verdict is the result of a trial riddled with errors,” said Wyeth general counsel Lawrence V. Stein in a statement. “The confusion surrounding the jury’s deliberations only confirms our view that this verdict will not survive on appeal.”
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Verdict: $47.6 million to Pamela Forrester;
$43.5 million to Jeraldine Scofield;
$43 million to Arlene Rowatt.
$134.1 million total
$99 million in punitives
State: Nevada
Type of case: Pharmaceutical
negligence/failure-to-warn
Trial: 5 1/2 weeks
Deliberations: 2 days compensatory; 2 hours punitives
Status: Defendant has appealed.
Case name: Rowatt v. Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Date of verdict: Oct. 10, 2007 compensatory; Oct. 15, 2007 punitives
Plaintiffs’ attorneys: Zoe Littlepage and Rainy Booth of Littlepage Booth in Houston, Texas
Defense attorney: Dan Webb of Winston & Strawn in Chicago, Ill.