In Pennsylvania, a $28 million Xarelto verdict was recently thrown out because a judge allegedly ignored key evidence.

Plaintiff Lynn H. was originally awarded a $28 million Xarelto verdict in a bellwether case. The original Xarelto verdict was awarded because the jury decided that Johnson & Johnson and Bayer AG units did not warn customers or doctors properly regarding the potential of internal bleeding events that have been connected with use of the drug.

This $28 million Xarelto verdict, awarded in favor of the plaintiff, came after three Xarelto cases that were part of the large Louisiana-based Xarelto multidistrict litigation (MDL) were decided in favor of the defense.

The initial trial, which lasted three weeks, looked at arguments about the warning label on the drug. This label originally left out important information about clinical trials and the incidence of higher rates of excessive bleeding among United States Xarelto users.

According to this information that Lynn claims should have been on the drug label, drug trial participants in the United States had an 8.1% rate of dangerous bleeding incidents than those elsewhere (3.6%).

This important information was listed on the drug label in September 2015. At this time the U.S. Food and Drug Administration made efforts to make labels of new anticoagulant drugs standardized.

She also argued that companies failed “to adequately warn about the higher risk of bleeds when using the drug along with aspirin, and of failing to inform doctors that some patients end up with significantly higher levels of the medication in their blood than others,” according to Law360.

Lynn claims that the reason her $28 million Xarelto verdict has been overturned is because the judge in her case did not take into account important evidence regarding additional warnings that might have changed her physician’s mind in prescribing Xarelto to her.

According to Lynn’s objection to the judge’s decision, “[t]he evidence before the jury, when viewed in the light most favorable to plaintiff, establishes that plaintiff’s prescribing physician would not have prescribed to plaintiff, and plaintiff would not have ingested, [Xarelto] … had the defendants adequately warned plaintiff’s prescribing physician of the actual risks.”

Judge Michael Erdos tossed this groundbreaking Xarelto verdict even though he heard testimony informing him that had Lynn received information about Xarelto’s bleeding risks, she would not have taken the anticoagulant. The judge said that he based this decision on testimony from her doctors who said in court that even if they had seen additional warnings about the drug, they still would have prescribed Xarelto for her.

Lynn’s attorney’s made the point that this evidence should be looked at along with Lynn’s own testimony that she would not have taken Xarelto had she gotten additional warnings about the risks of bleeding.

Bayer responded to the new overturned Xarelto verdict by saying, “We will respond formally to an appeal at the appropriate time, but believe the court’s ruling in favor of Bayer and Janssen was proper under the law and in light of the evidence in this case.”

Lynn’s case is part of a Philadelphia-based mass tort program including about 1,500 cases.

The Xarelto Lawsuit is Case No. 160603416, in the Court of Common Pleas of the State of Pennsylvania, County of Philadelphia.