Jury To Select 10 Paragard Suits For First Bellwether Trial

Jury To Select 10 Paragard Suits For First Bellwether Trial

Introduction

The method for selecting a group of ten typical cases has been detailed by the United States District Court hearing over all federal Paragard proceedings.

These cases will be eligible for the first bellwether trials next year, with each claim needing accusations of IUD breakage during implant removal.

The judge has established a bellwether program as part of the pretrial proceedings, in which a small group of representative cases will be prepared for early trial dates to help the parties gauge how juries are likely to react to certain evidence and expert witness testimony that will be repeated across thousands of cases if Paragard settlements are not reached.

The judge previously stated that the first Paragard bellwether trial will begin on March 4, 2024, but the Court will not choose which exact case will go before a jury until this autumn after a limited number of claims undergo case-specific discovery over the following six months.

The judge indicated in a case management order issued on February 22 that the parties will now begin the process of selecting an initial bellwether case pool, which will consist of 10 Paragard lawsuits involving IUD breakage allegations, with Plaintiff Fact Sheets and document production completed prior to December 1, 2022.

This week, the parties will submit a list of all qualifying cases for selection, and the plaintiffs have been required to suggest 15 instances for the bellwether pool by February 27, 2023. By March 17, the parties will each choose three instances from this list, and the court will choose six cases at random. After a series of challenges, each side will be allowed to strike one case, resulting in a final pool of ten claims.

Upon the completion of the bellwether pool, each case will go through additional discovery, which will include depositions of the plaintiffs and their spouses, as well as medical professionals and other fact witnesses.

The parties will reconvene and consult in August 2023 to make alternate strikes from the remaining ten bellwether pool cases until just six claims remain. The parties will then choose one case each, and the court will choose a third, with the first trial date set for March 2024.

Between August 18, 2023 and December 22, 2023, the parties will conduct additional discovery on the three remaining cases, and the Court will later identify which claim will go before a jury first, with another identified as a backup in the event that a settlement or other resolution prevents the first case from proceeding to trial.

The Paragard IUD is a tiny plastic device coated with copper that is implanted in the uterus to provide women with long-term pregnancy prevention for up to 10 years.

Although the procedure is marketed as safe and reversible, allowing doctors to remove the IUD during an out-patient office procedure when women no longer want the birth control, lawsuits filed in federal court allege that women experienced Paragard IUD breakage as doctors attempted to remove it, often necessitating emergency surgery to retrieve pieces of the IUD, which can cause devastating internal injuries.

Consolidated pretrial proceedings were established in December 2020, transferring all pending and new cases filed throughout the federal court system to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia for coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings as part of an MDL due to common questions of fact and law raised in complaints filed in U.S. District Courts nationwide (multidistrict litigation).