Kaye Scholer Wins Jury Trial for Pfizer units Wyeth Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Pharmacia & Upjohn Co.

Kaye Scholer currently acts as national coordination counsel for all matters related to Pfizer and its subsidiaries on hormone therapy (HT) litigation. In July, we successfully defended Wyeth and Pharmacia & Upjohn in Hines v. Wyeth, et al in West Virginia — a jurisdiction the American Tort Reform Foundation classifies as one of the nation’s “judicial hell holes.” After a three-week trial, the jury found that the clients’ HT products did not cause the plaintiff’s breast cancer and that plaintiff’s claims were time-barred by the applicable statute of limitation. Notably, this was the first defense verdict for Pharmacia & Upjohn in the HT litigation.

In a news article written after the case, the local plaintiff’s lawyer complained about how defense counsel came to town, set up temporary office space, and ”bombarded the court with motions.” The lawyer further noted that “They just pounded us on every single argument, every single point... They slammed the court and us with a lot of motions. And I'd say the vast majority of those motions, the defendants won."

The Kaye Scholer trial team consisted of Pamela J. Yates, Partner in the Los Angeles office, and Andrew K. Solow, Counsel in the New York office. Co-counsel in the case were Charles Goodell of Goodell, DeVries, and David Dukes of Nelson Mullins. Local counsel was Erik Legg of Farrell, White & Legg.