First Trial Selected in NuvaRing Litigation

January 30, 2013 — A NuvaRing lawsuit has been scheduled for trial on May 6, 2013 in New Jersey state court, where approximately 200 other cases are currently pending.

About 1,000 other NuvaRing lawsuits are pending in federal court in the U.S. District for the Eastern District of Missouri, and those lawsuits are scheduled for trial in July 2013. All of the lawsuits allege that NuvaRing was sold without adequate warnings about the increased risk of blood clots.

The New Jersey NuvaRing litigation is centralized in the Superior Court of New Jersey, Bergen County, before Judge Brian R. Martinotti. Lawyers have spent the last few months choosing which cases will be trial candidates.

According to a Case Management Order filed on January 15, the lawsuit will go before a jury beginning in May. These “bellwether” trials are selected because they involve injuries and allegations that are similar to many other cases in the litigation. The jury’s decisions are very important, because they can help lawyers gauge how a jury responds to evidence and testimony. This information can help gauge the value of a potential settlement.

All of the lawsuits in the centralized NuvaRing litigation have been filed by women who suffered from blood clots or complications of blood clots. The problem is that many of these women allege that they were never warned that NuvaRing is associated with a higher risk of blood clots than many other contraceptives, but it is equally effective at preventing pregnancy.

The problem is that NuvaRing contains a new type of hormone called etonogestrel. Studies published in May 2012 in the British Medical Journal linked NuvaRing to a 6.5-fold increased risk of blood clots compared to many other contraceptives. Two months later, the New England Journal of Medicine linked NuvaRing to a 2.5-fold increased risk of stroke due to blood clots in the brain.