J&J Units Should Pay $25 Million for Death,
Jury Told
Bloomberg.com
By Andrew Harris
November 14, 2008
The Johnson & Johnson units that make and sell the Duragesic pain-killing patch should be forced to pay at least $25 million to the family of a woman who died after using a defective one, two attorneys told a Chicago jury.
Janice DiCosolo, 38, of suburban Cicero, died of a drug overdose in February 2004 that lawyers for her husband, John, and their three children say came from a lethal amount of the narcotic fentanyl, the main ingredient in the patch. "Fentanyl killed Janice DiCosolo. It's the elephant in the room," plaintiffs' lawyer Jim Orr today told the jury of seven men and seven women, including two alternates, as he summarized more than two weeks of trial testimony in Illinois state court. "It's obvious to everyone."
The Duragesic-brand patch is made by Alza Corp., a Mountain View, California, company owned by New Brunswick, New Jersey based Johnson & Johnson, the world's biggest maker of medical devices.
The patches were distributed by another J&J unit, Janssen Pharmaceutica. The patches generated $1.16 billion in sales last year for Johnson & Johnson, making them the company's seventh best-selling product, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The DiCosolo trial started on Oct. 29, one day after a Sanford, Florida, jury awarded more than $13 million to the family of Susan Hodgemire, a 34-year-old mother of five who died after using a Duragesic patch in 2002.
'No Real Evidence'
"This is a story that can be told from beginning to end without a leaking patch," Rita Maimbourg, an attorney for the companies, told the Chicago jurors during her closing argument. Orr and his colleagues produced "no real evidence" of a defect in the patches used by Janice DiCosolo before she died, Maimbourg said.
Citing the results of an autopsy, the defense lawyer said DiCosolo died from the interaction of at least five drugs, including fentanyl, found in her system by a Cook County coroner, Lawrence Cogan.
Fentanyl is a painkiller 100 times more powerful than morphine, Orr's partner, Michael Heygood, said. The patches, prescribed for people combating chronic pain, are to be worn for 72 hours and then discarded. Janice DiCosolo was found wearing one when she died.
Each patch contains enough fentanyl to kill 10 300-pound men, said Orr.
Janssen recalled one lot of Duragesic patches in February 2004, a day after DiCosolo died, because of improper sealing, defense lawyer David Sudzus wrote in a court filing. The patch worn by DiCosolo was from that lot, he said.
That patch wasn't defective, said Maimbourg, a partner in the Cleveland office of Tucker, Ellis & West.
Johnson & Johnson paid more than $2.5 million in July to settle claims its Duragesic patch killed a Florida man, three people with knowledge of the accord told Bloomberg News.
The case is DiCosolo v. Janssen Pharmaceutica, 04L5351, Cook County, Illinois, Circuit Court, Law Division (Chicago).
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