Bellwether Trial Pool: 16 Zostavax Vaccine Cases Selected

Introduction

In the recently centralized Zostavax litigation, MDL No. 2848., in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, presiding Judge Harvey Bartle III established a bellwether process following which Merck & Co. and a Plaintiffs’ Executive Committee (PEC) selected a group of 16 Zostavax vaccine cases, which will go through case-specific discovery and will be prepared for the first trial dates.

There are around 600 product liability lawsuits pending against Merck, each alleging its failure to warn consumers and the medical community about the potential side effects of Zostavax. The plaintiffs have claimed that they have suffered more severe and persistent shingles outbreaks, along with auto-immune disorders like meningitis, paralysis, acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM), transverse myelitis, chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIPD) and other painful conditions. The discovery pool will help the parties gauge how juries might respond to evidence that will be repeated throughout the litigation.

The cases will be grouped into two categories and prepared for five proposed trial dates that will take place between fall 2020 and summer 2021.

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