Multidistrict Litigation-Testosterone Replacement Therapy

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Brad Martin v. Actavis Inc.

Case No.: 22-2664

Officials: Flaum, St. Eve, and Pryor, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Multidistrict Litigation-Testosterone Replacement Therapy

Plaintiff Martin was taking a testosterone replacement therapy drug (“TRT”) called Androderm when he suffered a heart attack. That made him one of hundreds of claimants who took a TRT before experiencing a significant cardiac event. The resulting lawsuits against TRT-producing pharmaceutical companies were consolidated as a multidistrict litigation (“MDL”), and Martin filed his lawsuit as part of that MDL. When defendant Actavis, the company that produces Androderm, reached a global settlement with most of the MDL plaintiffs, Martin opted to take his case to trial instead.

The jury quickly decide that Androderm had not caused his heart attack. Hours later, Martin’s attorney, James O’Brien, received the last documents in a months-overdue discovery production for another Androderm case in the MDL on which he was also lead counsel. These documents included a previously undisclosed letter from the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) requiring Actavis to conduct a trial to study a potential causal link between Androderm and high blood pressure. Armed with that letter, Martin’s attorney filed a motion for a new trial, alleging that Actavis had intentionally withheld evidence to protect its defense strategy against Martin. The district court denied the motion, holding that because Actavis was not required to disclose the letter and Martin had failed to request it, the evidence did not warrant a new trial. The FDA letter would probably not have resulted in a verdict in Martin’s favor.

Affirmed.

Decided 06/20/23

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