Dispatches from the Zantac MDL

All Zantac cases filed in federal court are now before Judge Rosenberg in the Southern District of Florida (“MDL Court”). To date, the Court has entered 42 pretrial orders covering everything from appointing lead counsel and leadership committees for Plaintiffs and Defendants to establishing a procedure lawyers can use to register the claims of their unfiled clients rather than filing formal complaints.

Below are some of the highlights of the 42 pretrial orders (“PTO”). We’ll be posting information about the Zantac litigation on a regular basis, so check back often to stay up to date.

• PTO 11:   Establishing a procedure for filing personal injury complaints directly in the MDL Court. Lawyers may only file single-plaintiff complaints directly in the MDL.
• PTO 12:   Appointing Professor Jaime Dodge, Director of the Institute for Complex Litigation and Mass Claims at Emory Law School, as Special Master to aid the Court in implementing case management procedures and data collection.
• PTO 15:   Establishing a registry for unfiled plaintiffs. This is a must-read PTO. Rather than filing a complaint for every client in a lawyer’s inventory, PTO 15 sets up a procedure by which lawyers can register their clients with the Court’s registry and toll the statute of limitations for those clients until the Court rules on Daubert motions, which will not occur until late 2022.
• Lawyers must submit a Census Plus Form for each unfiled client. In PTO 42, the Court extended the deadline for the submission of Census Plus Forms to September 30, 2020.
• PTO 18:   Creating a procedure for obtaining medical records and proof of Zantac use on behalf of deceased (wrongful death cases) and incapacitated individuals. The Order attaches a one-page form to complete and send to the Special Master.
• PTO 20 and PTO 22: Setting up the leadership structure for Plaintiffs and Defendants
• PTO 29:   Establishing a protocol for discovery of ESI (electronically stored information) and hard copy (paper) documents
• PTO 30:   Establishing a case management schedule, including deadlines for fact discovery, expert discovery, and briefing on Daubert motions
• PTO 31:   Requiring all plaintiffs, whether filed directly in the MDL or transferred in from another court, to file a Short Form Complaint, which can be found here. [Mac, please have “here” link to a blank SFC]. Do not file your client’s Short Form Complaint on the Master MDL docket. It must be filed using your client’s specific case number.
• PTO 39:   Establishing protocol for voluntarily dismissing complaints or dropping defendants.
• PTO 41:   Establishing a protocol for taking the preservation depositions of plaintiffs with rapidly deteriorating health.

Stay tuned for more news from the Zantac MDL.

Brian Herrington

At Chhabra Gibbs & Herrington PLLC, we’re litigating Zantac cases in-house – if you refer a case to us, you can rest assured that it will be litigated aggressively and by top notch Mass Tort & Class Action Attorneys. If you or a loved one has suffered one or more Zantac or Ranitidine complications after taking Zantac for a minimum of 1 year, you may be entitled to a cash award and compensation for medical expenses. For a free confidential consultation with Zantac Lawyers at our law firm, please call 601-948-8005 or use our live chat.