A wrongful death lawsuit, filed on behalf of the parents of a baby that died after taking Infant's Tylenol, has the drug's ignored quality control issues on their side and the statute of limitations possibly against them, as reported by the Courthouse News Service.
A federal judge has ruled that both Johnson & Johnson and Wal-Mart must face the claim made by S.S., whose son T.S. died when he was two weeks old after ingesting Infant's Tylenol. T.S. began vomiting up blood on February 17, 2009, a day after a doctor had advised S.S. to given him his first dose.
S.S. took her baby to an emergency room. He was then airlifted to the Children's Primary Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah. He died of acute liver failure two days later on February 19, 2009.
S.S. and her husband N.S. filed the suit in Philadelphia in 2012. Johnson & Johnson (J&J), McNeil-PPC Inc., and Wal-Mart were named as defendants. Inmar Inc., its subsidiaries, and senior officials were also listed as defendants.
Some of the senior officials who allegedly moved in "contract workers who lacked technical pharmaceutical experience" and moved out trained professionals have also been named in the suit.
As the sales for Infant's Tylenol rose "glaring warning signals" were ignored, according to the suit. One such signal was a reprimand in 2007 from the Food and Drug Administration that had noted quality control issues.
The complaint states that "to prevent parents from switching permanently to less expensive acetaminophen products" Inmar began a "phantom" recall. The company also did "market assessments" to look at risk factors from any defective medicine.
S.S. and N.S. waited three years to file their suit and may now get hung up on the one year statute of limitations wrongful death cases adhere to.
However, Judge Kelly wrote that the parents "maintain that J&J did not recall the subject Infant's Tylenol until more than a year after (T.S's) death, and that it was only after Congress brought to light in 2010, the defendants' efforts to hide their manufacturing problems through the 'phantom recall' of Tylenol products' that plaintiff, (S.S.), had any way of knowing that defendants' pediatric medicines were defective and dangerous, and should not be given to children,. Similarly, plaintiffs assert that the statute was tolled by the doctrine of fraudulent concealment because J&J concealed from the public the existence of manufacturing and/or quality control issues at the Fort Washington facility where the defective Tylenol products were manufactured."
On the statute of limitations matter Judge Kelly wrote, "Discovery in this matter has yet to take place. Thus, any inquiry into defendants' alleged effort to hide knowledge of defective pediatric problems from the public would be premature at this stage given that the factual record is completely undeveloped. Thus, defendants have the option of again raising their statute of limitations arguments in a motion for summary judgment after the close of discovery."