San Antonio Actos Lawyer

Have You Been Seriously Injured Due to the Drug Actos? Our San Antonio Pioglitazone Attorneys Can Help You

An extremely powerful drug that has been linked to catastrophic side effects, Actos generated approximately $4.8 billion in sales in 2010. If you have been the victim of an Actos drug injury, then you could have grounds for a San Antonio Actos lawsuit against the manufacturer of the medication. However, several people have misconceptions of how a San Antonio Actos lawsuit proceeds. The San Antonio Actos injury attorneys with Grossman Law Offices present this article in an effort to correct some of those false perceptions.

Before we go any further with this article... it is imperative that you know any San Antonio Actos lawsuit is a type of mass tort. You need to know that it is extremely important that your case gets the individual attention it deserves. You will see several examples in this article of how important it is that you have a skilled and seasoned San Antonio Actos drug injury attorney working to protect your rights in this incredibly complex area of the law. A substantial amount of attention must be paid to your individual litigation.

Information on Actos

The name “Actos” is given in the United States to the drug pioglitazone by the Japan-based company Takeda Pharmaceuticals. It is a medication meant to be taken orally in an effort to control a patient’s blood sugar level. The drug is designed to reduce not only the liver’s resistance to insulin, but also the amount of glucose in the patient’s body. Sometimes Actos can be taken in combination with other drugs such as insulin; however, patients who have Type 1 diabetes should not take the medication.

Side Effects Linked with Actos

Takeda Pharmaceuticals has consistently provided updates concerning the side effects that have been associated with the use of Actos. Also, the company has provided regular updates on the warning label of the drug as well. There have been minor side effects associated with Actos use, such as:

• Headaches
• Sinus infection
• Sore throat
• Muscle pain
• Cold-like symptoms

In addition, however, Actos use has been linked with several catastrophic side effects, including:

• An increased risk of developing bladder cancer
• Macular edema, also known as diabetic eye disease
• Broken bones or fractures
• Low blood sugar
• Liver problems
• Heart failure

One unfortunate and all-too common side effect linked with use of Actos is an increased risk of bladder cancer development. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, after a continuous and extensive safety review, issued a statement on June 6, 2011 that warned extended use of Actos heightened a patient’s risk of bladder cancer development. When making this statement, the FDA made reference to a study conducted in France by researchers who brought to light the same problem. The French researchers were so alarmed by their findings, the country’s medical authorities prohibited further use of Actos. German researchers were also alarmed at the risk of use of Actos, and they recommended that doctors in Germany not start new patients on the medication. As of this writing, 70 patients who developed bladder cancer after using Actos filed Actos drug injury lawsuits.

The Proper Way to take San Antonio Actos Legal Action

When you make the choice to pursue a San Antonio Actos injury lawsuit, there is a wrong way and a right way to do it – this is the case will all kinds of drug injury litigation. This area of the law carries with it extremely formidable challenges and incredible levels of complexity. Some of these include multi-district litigation, or MDL (this is where the same case is litigated in different jurisdictions – there have been several instances where MDLs are tried in different states) and statutes of limitation. There are, of course, several other areas of complexity regarding mass tort litigation. If you do not have the existence of a skilled and seasoned San Antonio Actos injury attorney, is will be virtually impossible for you to obtain the compensation to which you are entitled. The San Antonio Actos injury lawyers with Grossman Law Offices have handled drug injury cases for two decades, during which time we have helped hundreds of drug injury victims obtain the full and fair compensation they deserved.

It is absolutely crucial that you pay a great deal of attention in regard to the way your lawyer handles your litigation. There are a lot of law firms that will choose simply to lump your case in with other cases that are similar. If yours is handled in this fashion, then after the case is won and the compensation is awarded, the law firm will divide the funds equally among all of its clients. Whether the victory comes in the form of a court decision or an out-of-court settlement, the compensation will be doled out in this manner. Due to this fact, one amount of compensation could be split, conceivably, among hundreds of Actos injury victims. However, the San Antonio Actos injury lawyers with Grossman Law Offices do not believe in this approach – it is neither a proper nor fair way to treat victims of an Actos injury. And it is not an equitable way in which to pursue an Actos injury lawsuit.

At Grossman Law Offices, we ensure that our Actos injury clients get the comprehensive and individual attention they should receive. Again, other law firms may choose to lump all of their clients into one class action lawsuit, but we will work passionately and diligently to make sure that every single one of our clients has the right to obtain the full and fair compensation to which they are entitled for the health problems and financial losses they have incurred. We are of the extremely strong belief that this is the only way in which we can provide the proper level of service to our clients.

A Brief Description of How Drug Injury Cases Work

Whenever a company brings a product to the public – no matter if that product is a new car, a brand of cookies or a drug – that product must, more or less, perform as it has been advertised to perform. There can be no devastating, unintended consequences from use of the product. This, obviously, is of particular importance in regard to the introduction of a prescription drug. If you were eating a brand of cookie that had just been released to the marketplace, you would not expect to become violently ill and have to be hospitalized. The same thing applies to use of prescription medication; you expect that the drug you take has been thoroughly researched and tested.

While it is reasonable to expect that the drug you take is safe, it is unreasonable to assume that a drug manufacturer can be aware of every single problem that could take place through use of the drug. The human body’s chemistry is far too complicated for anyone to have that kind of expectation. But if hundreds of people experience harm after taking a drug – and this has been alleged with Actos use – then those people are correct in assuming that the manufacturer of the drug exhibited negligence in identifying potentially harmful side effects and preparing that medication for public use.

You must realize that if you are expecting to employ some sort of minor technicality to win your case, that strategy of litigation is incredibly flawed. You must produce compelling evidence that the manufacturer of the drug committed negligence in the production or design of the medication. If you do not have that convincing proof, then you will not have the chance to obtain the restitution to which you are entitled. In addition, you have to convince the court that the manufacturer of the drug that injured you either did know or should have known that its medication had side effects that could inflict a great deal of harm in users. The San Antonio Actos injury lawyers with Grossman Law Offices have seen many instances where a drug manufacturer purposely placed its profits ahead of the health of the general public.

How Class Action Suits and Mass Torts are Different

As we referenced earlier, every type of drug injury case has its own special, specific type of difficulty. One of the most substantial challenges of this type of litigation is that, in several instances, there are many injury victims attempting to obtain restitution from the same defendant. And they are trying to obtain this compensation for the same negligent act that the defendant committed. Consider an automobile accident that takes place when a single driver hits 10 other cars. Should this case find its way into a courtroom, the judge who is presiding will group all of the cases into one large case. The court will typically try to eliminate several instances of the same kind of litigation, so they will regularly lump these similar cases into one.

Litigation involving a drug injury works in much the same manner. If there are several victims who suffer harm because of a single, negligent act, those victims can work in a collective fashion in order to obtain restitution from the defendant responsible for the harm that has befallen them However, there is a crucial difference between a class action lawsuit and a mass tort. All victims, or plaintiffs, involved in a class action suit have the same cause of action and the same claim. However, while plaintiffs in a mass tort might share the same cause of action, each plaintiff has an individual claim.

Think of it this way: all plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit obtain the same amount of compensation. In a mass tort, each plaintiff is awarded an equitable amount of compensation. You get what you get in a class action lawsuit, while you get what you deserve in a mass tort. In a class action, you are limited to the same-sized slice of pie that all the other plaintiffs in your case receive.

As you can see, it can be extremely difficult for a plaintiff in a class action lawsuit to win full and fair restitution. This example does not have anything to do with a drug injury case, but it does show plaintiffs who participate in a class action suit often do not benefit. Consumers in 2009 filed suit against Kellogg Company, claiming that the company falsely advertised health benefits of two cereals, Cocoa Krispies and Rice Krispies. They filed suit because the two cereals were advertised as helping a body’s immune system. Kellogg – as many companies facing this kind of legal action do – agreed to an out-of-court settlement for $2.5 million. But while the attorneys working the case won thousands and thousands of dollars, the plaintiffs were “awarded” $5 in compensation for every box they purchased – with a limit of three boxes. There are some instances where a class action lawsuit can be an advantage for a plaintiff. However, a San Antonio Actos drug injury lawsuit is not one of them.

The Critical Importance of the Representative Case

A San Antonio Actos lawsuit – just like any other kind of mass tort case – is based on the representative case. What this means is that when the first plaintiff or group of plaintiffs files a drug injury lawsuit and it goes to trial, then that is the representative case. The plaintiff or plaintiffs then provides proof that shows the extent of the injuries they have incurred, and then a monetary value is placed by the court on the plaintiff’s (or plaintiffs’) damages, including lost wages, pain and suffering and medical expenses. However, the court could also add punitive damages, which are meant to punish the especially egregious act of negligence committed by the defendant.

As stated in the last paragraph, the decision that is rendered in the representative case will determine the course that all future Actos injury cases take, just as lower courts follow the Supreme Court’s decision regarding a particular application of the constitution. In other instances, a judge may order a defendant to place money in a trust that will be used to fund compensation received by future plaintiffs suing that defendant.

How the Statute of Limitations Can Affect Your Case

The term “cause of action” is a critical aspect of your litigation, even though you may not be familiar with it. In order to have a chance at prevailing in your case, you must first prove that the defendant owed you a duty of care, and that the defendant violated that duty. Once you prove this, you will have a cause of action. And when you have a cause of action, you have the ability to seek compensation from that defendant. But a sort of “shelf life” exists in regard to a cause of action. That shelf life is the statute of limitations. When you statute of limitations expires, your cause of action expires as well. It does not matter how strong your case may be; if your statute of limitations runs out you will have no chance possible of obtaining restitution.

As with nearly all components of all drug injury cases, the statute of limitations has several variables associated with it. Most plaintiffs typically have two years from the date when a breach of duty takes place in order to take legal action. In regard to this statute of limitations, however, there are several questions that are raised. This is particularly so in regard to a drug injury case. When did the breach of duty take place? Was it the first day you took the drug? Was it the first day you became aware that you had suffered a drug injury? Was it the first day that you linked your injury with use of the drug?

The court will, in every instance, make an effort to be fair and reasonable in regard to the statute of limitations. In every case, the court will try to ensure that the plaintiff has the chance to pursue compensation via a lawsuit. Of course, there have been several drug injury cases decided in the past, and as a result there is a substantial amount of case law that can be researched. Through careful analysis of this case law, there has been established a rule of thumb. And this rule of thumb dictates that the statute of limitations of a plaintiff’s case begins when the plaintiff should have first been aware that the defendant’s negligence caused the injury that he or she suffered. That date, according to the drug injury case law rule of thumb, is the day that the FDA issued the warning that the drug could have dangerous side effects. There are times where the manufacturer itself will warn users that they could be in danger of suffering severe consequences if they continue to take a drug. Either way, whether the FDA or the manufacturer made the announcement, that is when the dangers became “common knowledge.”

Multi-District Litigation and Your Drug Injury Case

As previously mentioned, your drug injury litigation will be greatly influenced with the statute of limitations. When the FDA or the manufacturer makes the dangers of a drug common knowledge, you must then determine how long you have to take legal action. In Texas, the statute of limitations is two years, while in Arkansas it is three years. But what happens win a mass tort involves plaintiffs who live in different states? Which statute of limitations “wins out,” so to speak?

Multi-district litigation provides the answer. We previously covered the critical nature of the representative case in terms of a drug injury lawsuit, and how that case determines the course of all others related to that drug in particular. The judge who decides the representative case will have an enormous amount of work on his or her plate. Not only will that judge have to deal with a trial that could take weeks or even months, he or she will also have to possess a great deal of foresight. The reason is the decision of that judge will have a profound effect on a large number of future plaintiffs. The representative case is typically tried in the jurisdiction where the defendant’s headquarters is located. Therefore, any future cases that involve the mass tort will be decided in the court where the representative case’s decision was rendered. No matter where the plaintiff resides, the procedures and rules of that court will be followed. Referring back to Actos, a multi-district litigation joint panel was scheduled for December 1 in Savannah, Georgia with the intent to establish an MDL regarding Actos. As of this writing, the Actos MDL was expected to begin at the end of 2011 with a decision expected early in 2012.

How to Obtain the Compensation You Deserve

As we previously mentioned, there are times where a judge in a representative case will order a defendant to place money in a trust, and this trust will be used to fund the restitution that is won by future plaintiffs. As you will see, this is another example of how critically important it is for a plaintiff to have a San Antonio Actos injury attorney working on his or her behalf in order to have the best chance possible of obtaining full and fair compensation.

Every drug case contains a great deal of nuance, and this nuance can be extremely difficult for novice lawyers and seem like a foreign language to people with no legal experience. There are rules and procedures set in every court – and if you do not comply with each and every one of them, your case can be dismissed. Also, a court can order a drug manufacturer to compensate all of the plaintiffs who are part of a mass tort, and this can soon cause the defendant to run out of money. Therefore, in this type of instance there is a sort of “race against time” among all the plaintiffs to get their cases decided before the money runs out. Unless you act in a quick, decisive and extremely aggressive manner, you could be doing nothing but wasting your time because there is no more compensation to obtain. In addition, you also have to put a “price tag,” of sorts, on your damages – this is known in the legal realm as “proving up” your damages. It takes a skilled and seasoned San Antonio Actos injury lawyer to be able to not only act aggressively to make sure your case is decided before the money runs out, but to also be able to make an accurate calculation of the damages that you have incurred.

Can You Sue Your Doctor?

In most cases, the most obviously liable party in a San Antonio Actos injury case is the company that manufactured the drug from a practical and legal perspective. When a product is manufactured for public consumption – especially when that product is a form of prescription medication – the person using the product has a reasonable expectation that he or she will not be injured in any way. There are usually minor side effects associated with almost every kind of drug. But when a devastating side effect such as kidney failure or development of bladder cancer occurs, then that is obviously an unreasonable risk. If a manufacturer commits negligence and caused a catastrophic injury or malady, then that manufacturer should rightly be blamed to the negligence committed.

Many people, however, think that the second party that can be sued is the doctor who wrote the prescription for the harmful drug. But, again, this is almost never a recommended course of action from both a legal and practical perspective. Typically, it is very, very tough to be able to sue a medical practitioner because of the liability limits that provide protection from legal action to doctors and other medical professionals. But the more important consideration is that, in the vast majority of instances, a doctor simply did nothing wrong. As a result, a San Antonio drug injury lawsuit against a doctor is a waste of time. A doctor’s involvement normally ends when he or she writes a prescription. However, if a doctor writes a prescription for Actos, for example, and knows all of the dangers associated with use of the drug, then that doctor can be sued – especially if the patient already had a high risk of developing bladder cancer. But the large majority of the time, a doctor only writes a prescription based on the information he or she has regarding the safety of the drug. If a patient suffers an injury after taking a drug as prescribed, most of the time that doctor will not have known that a danger existed, because those problems had not become common knowledge. If the doctor knew of those dangers and still prescribed the drug, then that doctor can be the target of a drug injury lawsuit. This is a very rare circumstance, however.

Several drug injury victims have also contacted us regarding suing the FDA. This is even less recommended than suing a doctor, again, for both legal and practical reasons. The FDA is shielded from litigation, even when it fails to perform its “discretionary function or duty” and someone suffers harm as a result. The FDA was formed to protect the public from dangerously defective products. But if you suffer an injury and you can prove that the FDA failed in its mission, you still cannot sue it. And, just as doctors, the FDA does nothing wrong the vast majority of the time. You would be wasting both your money and your time by filing a suit against the FDA.

Deciding Whether or Not to Pursue a San Antonio Actos Lawsuit

All drug injury cases – Actos injury cases included – are incredibly difficult and complex. In order to determine whether or not you have grounds for a San Antonio Actos lawsuit, you must take several factors into consideration. If you only suffered a sore throat or headache after taking Actos, then you should not file a suit because your damages would be insufficient. But if you suffered a catastrophic condition such as the development of bladder cancer or kidney failure, then that is obviously not the “reasonable risk” that was earlier described. As a result, you have more than likely incurred substantial monetary losses. You could in no way have reasonably expected to incur that level of suffering after using the drug.

How Grossman Law Offices Can Help

After reading this article, hopefully you realize the need for an experienced San Antonio Actors drug injury attorney who can make sure your best interests are looked after and provide the best chance possible of helping you obtain fair restitution. This is a very challenging and complex area of the law, and if you try and act as your own lawyer you are almost guaranteed to lose. There are several intricacies that are a part of every type of drug injury litigation.

The San Antonio Actos attorneys with Grossman Law Offices are passionate in their efforts to help their clients obtain equitable compensation. We always base our strategy on our clients’ individual cases. We will not merely lump you into the same group of clients with similar cases and the same cause of action. We will give you the comprehensive and individual attention you deserve so that you have the best chance possible of winning the most compensation possible. If you or someone close to you has suffered an Actos injury, please call Grossman Law Offices as soon as possible at 1-855-393-0000 (toll free) for a free and confidential consultation regarding the specific details of your case. We will listen to those details and give you an honest and frank assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of your case. We are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week to answer all of your questions.