Class Certification in Fla. Prempro Suit Reversed (Mass Tort Alert)

Daily Business Review via Yahoo Finance ^ | 2/16/06 | Carl Jones

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In a huge victory for pharmaceutical giant Wyeth, a Florida appeals court on Wednesday halted a class action suit that claimed its hormone replacement drug could harm hundreds of thousands of Florida women.

A three-judge panel of the state's 3rd District Court of Appeal unanimously held in Wyeth Inc. v. Arlene Gottlieb that the claims were not common enough for the case to move forward as a class action. Instead, women who claim they may suffer future health problems because of their use of the drug Prempro will have to file individual suits against Wyeth.

The Wyeth decision reverses a ruling last February by Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Lawrence A. Schwartz certifying the class. It was the latest class action setback for Miami attorney Stanley Rosenblatt, who represented the class, which was estimated to include 300,000 Florida women.

The appeals court said the case did not meet the standard for a class action because "individual issues of law and fact exist." The decision was written by Judge Angel A. Cortinas. Chief Judge Gerald B. Cope Jr. and Judge Linda Ann Wells concurred.

The panel also found that the class representative, Arlene Gottlieb, was not a suitable representative of the class because her circumstances were much different than other purported members of the class.

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On to the next state for the class action clown lawyers...