State Law Claims to Proceed in Levaquin Tendon Injury Case

MINNEAPOLIS - State law failure-to-warn claims in a Levaquin injury case are not preempted because it was not "physically impossible" for the drug maker to strengthen the drug's warnings, even if it could not have instituted a black box warning, a Minnesota federal judge has ruled. Schedin v. Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc., No. 08-5743 (D. Minn.).

On March 4, Judge John R. Tunheim of the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota further ruled that it is not clear whether the type of data available to Ortho-McNeil Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc. was inadequate to alter the "warnings and precautions" section of …