January 21, 2015 — Harris Martin reports that 31 lawsuits involving Mirena have been dismissed because they were filed after the statute of limitations.
U.S. District Judge Cathy Seibel approved Bayer’s request to dismiss the cases as time-barred under Louisiana, California, Oklahoma, and Ohio law.
She found that none of the plaintiffs’ claims were saved by the discovery rule because they should have been aware of their injuries within the statute of limitations period.
The statute of limitations varies state by state. States like Louisiana give plaintiffs only one year to file a lawsuit after being injured, while other states (Maine, for example) give plaintiffs up to six years. Because the deadline can change, it is important to contact an attorney as soon as possible if you are considering filing a lawsuit.
The dismissals haven’t put much of a dent in the size of the litigation. As of January 15, Bayer was facing 1,160 lawsuits involving Mirena. Those cases have been centralized in a federal court in New York.
Women accuse Bayer of failing to adequately warn about the risk of spontaneous uterine perforations from Mirena. The T-shaped intrauterine device (IUD) can allegedly migrate spontaneously, puncture the uterus, and move into the abdomen. When these complications occur, Mirena does not protect against pregnancy and it must be removed surgically.
The original label on Mirena only warned about uterine perforations during the insertion procedure, despite hundreds of reports of spontaneous perforations that occurred months or even years after Mirena was implanted.