Andy Campbell Explains Legal Issues at Play in Fungal Meningitis Outbreak and Resulting Litigation

A fungal meningitis case reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in September 2012 spread into an outbreak across 20 states, with the New England Compounding Center identified as the source of tainted epidural steroids. The company filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December 2012, and liability claims against them are being handled through bankruptcy court, Indiana Lawyer reported.

Andy Campbell of Faegre Baker Daniels, who defends drug companies in litigation, told Indiana Lawyer that pharmaceutical suits typically are based on allegations that the manufacturers failed to adequately warn consumers of side effects. This case is different because the charge is the medication was contaminated. This may affect how the case is litigated since the dispute could be more about a manufacturer-defect issue rather than failure to warn, Campbell said.

Plaintiffs lawyers are working to get quick restitution for their clients, but are not guaranteed success. The knee-jerk reaction is that juries would be more sympathetic to the injured party than to the pharmaceutical company, Campbell said, but that is not always so. "I think juries, at least in my experience, are very thoughtful in these cases," he explained.