The $2.5 million verdict awarded to the plaintiff in the first Risperdal case to go to trial in Philadelphia built momentum for the plaintiffs in the litigation, attorneys said, but it is not a nail in the coffin for Janssen Pharmaceuticals' defense.

Observers noted that while a significant verdict is helpful for the rest of the plaintiffs in the litigation, there is more to any mass tort than the result of the first case, especially because no two cases are the same.

On Feb. 24, a Philadelphia jury found Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Janssen negligent in having failed to warn of the potential for the antipsychotic drug Risperdal to cause gynecomastia, a condition in which males grow enlarged breasts. The verdict winner in the case, Austin Pledger, took Risperdal to treat behavioral symptoms related to autism and claimed to have developed gynecomastia from taking the drug.