The first plaintiffs filing a motion to consolidate made a request for all federal Actos claims to be transferred to U.S. District Court Judge G. Patrick Murphy in the Southern District of Illinois. Other plaintiffs have since filed responses requesting that different U.S. District Judges preside over the Actos litigation.
Takeda - responsible for Actos - has asked that the Northern District of Illinois be deemed the situe for all consolidated litigation because that is the location of the drug maker’s headquarters and the location of many of the company's records. Alternatively, the drug maker has asked that the Court centralize the Actos MDL in Western District of Louisiana because at least 16 lawsuits are now pending in that district.
Plaintiffs claim that each developed of bladder cancer as a side-effect of taking Actos, and that Takeda neither researched the medication properly nor issued proper warnings about the risk.
While Takeda’s attorneys do not agree with all of the plaintiffs’ assertions, they agree that the case qualified for a MDL consolidation in order to reduce or eliminate duplicative discovery and contradictory rulings.
A schedule for oral arguments on the consolidation motion is expected when the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation holds a hearing on December 1, 2011 in Savannah, Georgia. We'll be attending the hearing that day.
