Complaints 'Full of Boilerplate Language,' Judge Says in Tossing 173 Suits Over Merck's Zostavax
The order dismissed nearly one-third of the complaints from the 542-case multidistrict litigation against Merck in connection with shingles vaccine Zostavax.
May 06, 2019 at 12:00 PM
4 minute read
The original version of this story was published on The Legal Intelligencer
A federal judge has tossed 173 complaints from the litigation over the shingles vaccine Zostavax, and in doing so offered some stern words for the attorneys who filed the complaints.
U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle III of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on May 2 issued a five-page order tossing nearly one-third of the complaints from the 542-strong multidistrict litigation, saying that the complaints were “full of boilerplate language unrelated to the individual case,” and were “the antitheses of how a proper federal complaint should be drafted.”
The ruling tossed the plaintiffs' fraudulent misrepresentation, fraudulent concealment, negligent misrepresentation, consumer fraud and state consumer fraud violation claims with prejudice, and dismissed all the remaining claims, including unjust enrichment, breach of warranty, failure to warn, strict liability and negligence, without prejudice.
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