U.S. District Judge Lawrence Stengel was nominated by President George W. Bush to a seat on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Stengel will preside over the first Tylenol Bellwether trial. One of the crucial issues will be whether punitive damages will be unlimited or not available depending on whether Alabama or New Jersey law applies.
The first Tylenol bellwether trial in multidistrict litigation (MDL) is fast approaching and lawyers from both sides are gearing up. The Pennsylvania trial involves whether the acetaminophen in various Tylenol products from Johnson & Johnson (J&J), and its subsidiary McNeill Consumer Healthcare, caused acute liver failure.
U.S. District Judge Lawrence Stengel ordered jury selection on June 22, 2015 for Rana Terry’s wrongful death suit. Plaintiff Terry accuses J&J of causing her sister, Denice Hayes, acute liver failure after taking Tylenol Extra Strength in August 2010.
The suit also alleges how J&J knew about the dangers of Tylenol, but has failed to do anything about it. The suit describes the drug as unreasonably dangerous, defectively designed, fraudulent, and breached an express warranty.
Twenty-seven suits were filed in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in April 2013. The MDL is In re: Tylenol (Acetaminophen) Marketing, Sales Practices and Products Liability Litigation, case number 2:13-md-02436, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. The bellwether case is Rana Terry v. McNeil-PPC Inc. et al., case number 2:12-cv-07263, in the same court.