The Xarelto MDL is underway in the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Louisiana.

U.S. District Court Judge Eldon Fallon recently issued a case management order, stating that 40 individual Xarelto lawsuits would be selected for the discovery pool.

Plaintiffs selected 10 Xarelto lawsuits, defendants collectively chose 10 Xarelto lawsuits and the remaining 20 Xarelto lawsuits were selected at random with venue restrictions put in place to ensure a well-rounded discovery pool.

Of these selected Xarelto lawsuits, five originated in the Eastern District of Louisiana, one from Mississippi, one from Texas, and the other three cases are from other states.

It was noted that the court also selected an additional 20 Xarelto lawsuits at random to join 10 selected by the plaintiffs and 10 selected by the defendants, creating the bellwether trial pool of 40.

The 20 cases selected by the court include Xarelto lawsuits from Louisiana and Mississippi, as well as one from each of a total of eight other states which will be selected by the parties involved.

What is Xarelto?

Xarelto is a blood thinner medication that is used to prevent blood clots from forming due to an irregular heartbeat, after hip or knee replacement surgery, and to treat deep vein thrombosis and to prevent clots from forming again.

Doctors have been searching for many years for an anticoagulant that didn’t require the stringent scrutinizing that warfarin does. They thought Xarelto might be the answer, until it was discovered that the blood thinner had become associated with numerous severe bleeding events, and as of yet, there is no effective antidote for Xarelto.

Xarelto Bellwether Selection Criteria

In December 2014, Judge Fallon issued a case management order indicating that plaintiffs must satisfy all of the criteria according to specific categories to be eligible for the discovery pool.

The criteria requested that Xarelto lawsuits should involve someone who had suffered or died from a gastrointestinal bleed, brain hemorrhage, or rectal bleeding all while using the blood thinner in order to prevent a stroke, pulmonary embolism, or deep vein thrombosis (DVT).

Xarelto MDL

The Xarelto multidistrict litigation was created in 2014 in Eastern Louisiana for the efficient management of cases. Since its creation, MDL No. 2592 has reached almost 3,000 cases in which plaintiffs allege that using the blood thinner drug caused them negative side effects.

Many individuals filing cases claim that manufacturers, Bayer AG and Johnson & Johnson, did not adequately warn them about the possibility of adverse side effects such as gastrointestinal bleeding, brain hemorrhages, internal bleeding, rectal bleeding, pulmonary embolisms (blood clots in the lung), epidural hematoma, stroke and heart attacks.

The first round of major Xarelto trials will take place in February and March of 2017. Judge Fallon will try the first two cases beginning on February 7 and March 13th of 2017. The next two bellwether trials will be held elsewhere, beginning on April 24 and May 30 of 2017.

These four Xarelto trials are expected to give defendants, plaintiffs, and their attorneys some important information on how jurors respond to testimony and evidence related to the drug’s use and side effects. That information will be crucial to predicting the likely course of future trials and estimated settlement amounts.