The New Jersey Supreme Court announced a multicounty (MCL) status for hair-loss lawsuits against Taxotere manufacturers on Tuesday, confirming the centralization of the cases in the Garden State and assigned the group to Superior Court Judge James Hyland.
The Justices published a notice on August 15, granting multicounty litigation status to about 353 such cases against Sanofi U.S. Services Inc., Sanofi-Aventis U.S. LLC, Sandoz Inc. and Actavis LLC, all of which allege the makers failed to adequately warn consumers about the potential health risks of Taxotere use. Chief Justice Stuart Rabner approved the application on August 17.
A significant number of Taxotere cases were already before Judge Hyland before the designation as a mass tort. About 9,100 Taxotere lawsuits are centralized as a multidistrict litigation (MDL No.2740; In Re: Taxotere (Docetaxel) Products Liability Litigation) for pretrial proceedings Eastern District of Louisiana overlooked by Judge Kurt D. Engelhardt. All of the lawsuits claim the chemotherapy drug is prone to cause permanent hair loss, the bellwether trial for the same is expected to begin in May 2019.
