A recent Risperdal verdict will stand in a Philadelphia Risperdal lawsuit, though it will be much smaller than the jury originally awarded.

Judge Victor DiNubile, Jr. denied Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s request to overturn the plaintiff’s verdict of $1.75 million. However, the judge also held that a Maryland law limiting damage award applied to the verdict and reduced it to $680,000.

In upholding the verdict, Judge DiNubile found that plaintiff Nicholas M. had presented enough evidence for the jury to find that Janssen had negligently caused Nicholas’s male breast growth, a condition known as gynecomastia.

Janssen had argued that Nicholas’s physicians had been aware of the risk of gynecomastia associated with Risperdal, and that more warning information would not have made a difference in their treatment decisions.

But the judge found that the doctor’s testimony was not clear on that point, and that the jury was correct to make their own determination as to whether the doctors would have acted differently with more information.

Janssen also unsuccessfully challenged testimony by David Kessler, a former FDA commissioner who said he believed Janssen had purposely tried to suppress information about the side effects of Risperdal, particularly in children.

Judge DiNubile also determined that Maryland law applied to the issue of damages, since Nicholas is a resident of that state. Application of that law to Nicholas’s case reduced his award to the maximum amount allowable under Maryland law.

Nicholas had argued that Maryland law should not apply to his lawsuit in Pennsylvania court because the issue of damages is procedural, not substantive. The judge disagreed, however, finding that damages and any law governing their limitation are “clearly substantive.”

A spokesperson from Johnson & Johnson, Janssen’s parent company, says the company plans to appeal the decision.

Nicholas’ Risperdal Story

Nicholas said he had been prescribed Risperdal in 2003 and took it until 2008 as a treatment for his autism spectrum disorder. Around 2006 to 2008, he said, he began to have noticeable male breast growth that got him teased by his middle school classmates.

Nicholas stopped taking Risperdal in 2008, but the breast growth did not resolve on its own, he said.

In his Risperdal lawsuit, Nicholas argued that Janssen knew about the risks of gynecomastia in Risperdal patients for many years before it included mention of the male breast growth risk in a warning label. Risperdal had originally been approved by the FDA in 1993 but was not approved for use in children and adolescents until 2006.

Risperdal Lawsuits

Over 1,700 similar Risperdal lawsuits are currently being processed in the same court in Philadelphia. Four of these cases, including Nicholas’s, have gone to trial.

One of those cases ended in February 2015 with a $2.5 million verdict in the plaintiff’s favor. Another plaintiff was awarded $500,000 in December 2015. Nicholas won his original $1.75 million verdict in November 2015

In the fourth case tried, the jury did not award any damages, though it did find that Janssen had failed to warn of the risk of Risperdal use in boys and men.

Nicholas’s Risperdal lawsuit is Case No. 130401990 in the Court of Common Pleas for Philadelphia County.