The date for the long awaited Xarelto bellwether trials has been pushed back a month due to a local New Orleans event.

The start of the Xarelto bellwether trials is now set to begin in March 2017 due to the hosting of the NBA All-Star game in New Orleans next February.

The Xarelto bellwether trials are designed to help lawyers and judges determine how the rest of the cases might go, and as a result, the trials are watched very closely.

The way these trials go may give a clue as to how the nearly 10,000 other Xarelto trials may go as well.

In these Xarelto bellwether trials, the plaintiffs are claiming that both Bayer Healthcare and Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen Pharmaceuticals failed to provide necessary warnings about the safety of Xarelto and the potentially life-threatening bleeding risks associated with the drug.

Plaintiffs also claim that the drug manufacturers failed to inform patients and the medical community that there was not an adequate reversal agent for adverse bleeding events.

Because of the similarity of the questions of fact and law in the claims the Xarelto litigation is centralized before U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon in the Eastern District of Louisiana.

This is where a small group of cases, the Xarelto bellwether trials, had been prepared to begin in February 2017.

This has now been pushed back another month to March 2017.

The first case in the Xarelto bellwether trails is now set to begin on March 13, 2017 in the Eastern District of Louisiana. The following month, the second case in the Xarelto bellwether trials will begin in New Orleans on April 24.

More cases are scheduled to go to trial in the Southern District of Mississippi and the Northern District of Texas at dates that are yet to be determined.

The outcomes of the Xarelto bellwether trials are not meant to be in any way binding on other litigation, however, they are meant to help facilitate future settlements in Xarelto cases and perhaps help avoid thousands of individual cases from having to face jury trials.

The week that the Xarelto bellwether trials were set to begin, the week of February 17, 2017, is also the week that the NBA All-Star Game is scheduled to be held in New Orleans. Because of this, the involved parties requested that the first of the trials be postponed one month.

Other dates, including those for trial discovery and expert schedules, have also been adjusted.

Xarelto’s lawsuits generally center around plaintiffs who claim that the drug can cause unstoppable internal bleeding, particularly brain bleeds.

Most plaintiffs are seeking compensation from Janssen and Bayer for failure to warn and negligent marketing, manufacture and sale of a product linked to serious injury.

If you or someone you love have suffered from adverse bleeding events as a result of Xarelto use, you may be entitled to compensation.