Subject: Multicounty Litigation

Hierarchy of Scientific Evidence Reigns Supreme: NJ Appellate Division Affirms Exclusion of Experts in Accutane Litigation

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In In re: Accutane Litigation (A-4952-16T1) — an appeal decided just 10 days after oral argument — the New Jersey Appellate Division applied the New Jersey Supreme Court’s landmark decision In re Accutane Litigation, 234 N.J. 340 (2018) (Accutane 2018), arising from the same multicounty litigation, to affirm exclusion of two of plaintiffs’ experts and dismissal of more than 3,000 cases.

The Accutane multicounty litigation involves thousands of cases in which plaintiffs claim the prescription acne medication caused inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The litigation has been divided into two parts, based on the sub-type of IBD injury alleged: cases in which plaintiffs claim Accutane caused Crohn’s disease (CD) and cases in which plaintiffs claim it caused ulcerative colitis (UC).

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NJ Top Court Tosses More Than 500 Suits Against Acne Medication Maker

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On October 3, 2018, the New Jersey Supreme Court dismissed 532 cases against Hoffmann-La Roche Inc. and Roche Laboratories Inc., the manufacturer of the prescription acne medication Accutane, holding that the laws of New Jersey – the location of Roche’s principal place of business– and not the respective laws of plaintiffs’ home states governed the adequacy of the warnings underlying plaintiffs’ failure to warn claims.  The Court held that because the medication’s warnings were FDA-approved, “they enjoy a ‘rebuttable presumption’ of adequacy under New Jersey’s Products Liability Act ([NJ]PLA).”

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