Judge Refuses to Certify Learned Intermediary Question to Utah Supreme Court in Lexapro Suicide Action

SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah federal judge has denied Forest Laboratories’ motion to certify a question to the state’s highest court concerning the rebuttable heeding presumption and the learned intermediary doctrine, ruling that Utah law is “sufficiently clear on those issues.”

On Oct. 14, Judge Tena Campbell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah ruled that Forest’s disagreement with the court’s interpretation of the law in a Lexapro suicide case does not justify certification of the issue.

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