Our Drug Injury Experience
Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman has extensive experience in litigating personal injury, wrongful death and consumer class action cases against major drug companies for more than 20 years. Our firm has been representing victims of defective drugs since the late 1980s. We started handling SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) antidepressant cases in 1990 and we were appointed to the Plaintiffs' Steering Committee in the early 1990s in the first SSRI-suicide litigation involving Prozac (the first SSRI approved by the FDA for marketing in the U.S.).
Our firm’s drug product liability litigation department has handled over 4,000 individual prescription drug cases involving injury or death against pharmaceutical defendants such as Alpha Therapeutic, Armour Pharmaceutical Co., Baxter Health Care Corp, Bayer Corp, Dalkon Shield, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Pfizer, and Wyeth.
Our drug litigation team is presently focusing on personal injury and wrongful death cases involving:
The team of lawyers working on our pharmaceutical defect cases has an in depth understanding of biomedical research, clinical trials, statistics, the pharmaceutical industry and marketing, as well as successful and effective discovery procedures and extensive work with experts on complicated scientific issues because of their years of experience related to Baum Hedlund’s past pharmaceutical litigation.
Our firm has developed a reputation as a law firm that can be counted upon to go above and beyond what is needed to get the job done; a firm that has successfully litigated personal injury, wrongful death and consumer fraud cases against major pharmaceutical companies. We maintain the highest *AV® peer review legal rating and is recognized as a preeminent plaintiff firm that tries or settles serious personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits across the nation.
While representing our clients, we dig deep into drug company files to discover the truth about what the company knew about the drug’s risks, when the company knew of those risks and what efforts, if any, the company took to hide those risks. Only through legal action can anyone gain access to this type of information.
Our lawyers are also strong public health advocates. Baum Hedlund attorneys have testified on several occasions at FDA drug safety hearings and have met with several members of the U.S. House and Senate. Many of our attorneys have delivered Continuing Legal Education accredited lectures and written articles on the many complex issues involved in pharmaceutical litigation. Our law firm has also assisted investigators in a number of Congressional investigations.
Past efforts by Baum Hedlund and others have resulted in improvements in drug safety including the most recent FDA black box suicide warning issued on certain antidepressants. The firm’s efforts get innocent victims compensated when duties are neglected or willfully disregarded.
Baum Hedlund has been on the prevailing side of some of the nation's most highly-publicized cases. Such litigation involves complex evidence and choice of law issues which have been routinely handled by the firm in both state and federal courts. Many of their attorneys have delivered Continuing Legal Education accredited lectures and written articles on the many complex issues involved in pharmaceutical litigation. Baum Hedlund is accustomed to handling the simplest and most complex cases and is here to solve legal problems caused by negligent conduct.
Over the past two decades, Baum Hedlund has been handling SSRI-induced suicide/violence litigation involving Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft. The firm is more recently handling SSRI related PPHN, heart birth defect and autism cases. We have the longest track-record handling SSRI antidepressant litigation, having litigated thousands of antidepressant cases. Baum Hedlund was appointed Lead Counsel for the Plaintiffs' Steering Committee (MDL-1574) Paxil Products Liability Litigation and has been on the plaintiffs steering committees on a number of other pharmaceutical multi-district litigation cases including the Heparin Products Liability Litigation, the Consolidated Complex Biological-Medical Products Liability Cases and the Fialuridine Product Liability Cases.
Baum Hedlund lawyers have successfully defeated arguments by drug-makers and the FDA that cases involving FDA-approved drugs should be federally preempted in a number of cases such as Knipe v. SmithKline Beecham d/b/a GlaxoSmithKline, Tucker v. SmithKline Beecham, Corporation, Collins v. SmithKline Beecham Corporation, Case No. 00762 (Court of Common Pleas, Philadelphia County, March 11, 2008), Steinberg v. SmithKline Beecham Corp. Case No. 104CV029096 (Santa Clara Sup. Ct., January 25, 2007), Witczak v. Pfizer, 377 F.Supp.2d 726 (D. Minn 2005); Zikis v. Pfizer, Inc., WL 1126909 (N.D. Ill. 2005); Cartwright v. Pfizer, Inc., 369 F.Supp.2d 876 (E.D. Tex. 2005); Miles v. Pfizer, Inc., Case No. 03731C (M.D. La. March 31, 2005) (order without opinion); Szybinski v. Pfizer, Inc., Case No. YC 047439 (Los Angeles Sup. Ct. July 12, 2005) (minute order striking FDA Amicus Briefs and denying preemption), and; Motus v. Pfizer, 137 F. Supp. 2d 1085 (C.D. Cal., 2000).
We take pride in creating coalitions of activists, attorneys and Baum Hedlund staff that work together to resolve global problems caused by harmful drugs and products, which no individual could accomplish alone.
Rigorously investigating and litigating the types of devastating cases we handle on a daily basis requires relentless focus and dedication to our clients’ causes. We are tenacious and unflinching when it comes to seeking evidence and have routinely prevailed in both state and federal courts.
*AV® Rating Explanation: Martindale-Hubbell is the facilitator of a peer review rating process. Ratings reflect the confidential opinions of members of the Bar and the Judiciary. Martindale-Hubbell Ratings fall into two categories - legal ability and general ethical standards. "CV, BV and AV are registered certification marks of Reed Elsevier Properties Inc., used in accordance with the Martindale-Hubbell certification procedures, standards and policies." "An AV® rating reflects an attorney who has reached the heights of professional excellence. He or she has usually practiced law for many years, and is recognized for the highest levels of skill and integrity."
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