Failure-To-Warn Claims to Proceed to Trial in Utah Lexapro Suicide Action

SALT LAKE CITY — Failure-to-warn claims brought against Forest Laboratories Inc. in a Lexapro suicide case are not preempted because there is no clear evidence that the FDA would have rejected a heightened warning concerning the correlation between suicidality and SSRIs, a Utah federal judge has ruled.

On July 13, Judge Tena Campbell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah further ruled that a question of fact exists as to whether Forest is shielded from liability from the learned intermediary doctrine.

Kurt Shipley committed suicide on April 29, 2004, 17 days after he began taking Lexapro to …