By: Derek Hawkins//March 15, 2017//
7th Circuit court of Appeals
Case Name: Charlene Eike, et al v. Allergan, Inc. et al
Case No.: 16-3334
Officials: BAUER, POSNER, and SYKES, Circuit Judges.
Focus: Class Certification
The defendants appeal from an order certifying eight classes (which for simplicity we’ll pretend are just one class), consisting of persons in Illinois and Missouri who take eye drops manufactured by six pharmaceutical companies—the defendants in the case—for treatment of glaucoma. The claim is that the defendants’ eye drops are unnecessarily large, in violation of the Illinois Consumer Fraud Act, 815 ILCS 505/1 et seq., and the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act, Mo. Rev. Stat. §§ 407.010 et seq., because each eye drop exceeds 16 microliters (equal to a tenth of one percent of a tablespoon), and the class contends that the optimal size of an eye drop for treatment of glaucoma is 16 microliters, no more. In places it says that drops as small as 5 microliters would be safe, but its claim is merely that anything larger than 16 microliters is wasteful because, it contends, the additional microliters add no therapeutic value.
Vacated and Remanded