Thousands of people pursuing comparable claims asserting that the recalled heartburn medication Zantac, which is turned into a hazardous, cancer-causing substance within the human body will be keenly watching a set of four Zantac cancer cases that a California state court judge has slated for trial in 2023.
Before it was pulled off the market in late 2019, Zantac (ranitidine), a medication used by millions of Americans to treat heartburn and acid reflux, was found to be intrinsically unstable and to create large amounts of the chemical byproduct N-Nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA), a strong human carcinogen.
More than 100,000 product liability claims have been filed against manufacturers, distributors, and retailers of brand-name Zantac or generic ranitidine pills by former users who claim Zantac caused cancer as NDMA moved through the body after years of exposure. These companies include GlaxoSmithKline, Boehringer Ingelheim, Pfizer, Sanofi, and various others.
While many of those cases have been brought in the federal court system, some have also been brought in state courts across the country, including California. In these cases, they have been consolidated before one state judge under what are known as Judicial Council Coordinated Proceedings (JCCP), and the court is coordinating them during pretrial proceedings.
A series of four bellwether trials will be heard in the Alameda branch of the California Superior Court next year, according to a pretrial order that the judge issued late last month. Previously, it was anticipated that the first Zantac trial dates in California would start in October 2022.
A second trial will start on May 1, a third trial will start on August 7, and the fourth bellwether trial will start on October 23, according to the revised timetable. The first bellwether case will commence on February 13, 2023. The order makes no mention of the delay's cause.
The federal court system has implemented a similar "bellwether" procedure, wherein claims filed in U.S. District Courts nationwide are likewise centralised before one judge for coordinated pretrial hearings, and the Court has already said that the first federal Zantac trial will start in 2023.
The results of these early trial dates will not be binding on other plaintiffs, but they are anticipated to have a significant influence on the amounts of any Zantac settlements the manufacturers may offer to prevent the nationwide scheduling of tens of thousands of individual trials in the upcoming years.
