Friday, April 29, 2011

Trial Date for First Fixodent Denture Cream Lawsuit is Set for June 20, 2011



You remember the Flap?

And, last year in August, GlaxoSmithKline reported that it had reached Super Poligrip settlements in the majority of lawsuits filed against them.

GlaxoSmithKline has indicated that most of the zinc poisoning lawsuits over their Super Poligrip denture cream are being settled with consumers.  

The company announced the Super Poligrip settlements in its second-quarter earnings report (pdf), indicating that they have “reached an agreement in principal to settle the vast majority of cases.”

Super Poligrip lawsuits have been filed against GlaxoSmithKline by a number of individuals throughout the United States who allege that they developed severe neurological injuries as a result of the manufacturer’s failure to disclose that the denture cream contains zinc. According to the complaints, high amounts of zinc can enter the body through use of the denture adhesive, leading to permanent and debilitating neurological problems like neuropathy, numbness, tingling, pain, weakness, loss of sensation, loss of balance, paralysis and difficulty breathing.

But, Procter and Gamble, the makers of Fixodent have refused to settle their cases and are going to trial in June.

The first trial for a Fixodent lawsuit in the federal denture cream litigation has been pushed back a couple of weeks and will begin on June 20, according to a recent court order. 

U.S. District Court Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga issued an order on April 13, scheduling a new trial date in the case of Chapman v. Procter and Gamble, which is set to be the first of several hundred lawsuits that will be presented to a jury involving allegations that a denture wearer developed permanent neurological damage from zinc contained in their denture adhesive. The Fixodent trial was originally scheduled to begin on June 6.

The delay comes after plaintiffs and defendants involved in the denture cream lawsuits asked Judge Altonaga to give them more time for the discovery phase of the litigation in December.

Each party has until April 22 to file motions to try to have any evidence excluded from the trial and there will be oral arguments to consider any pending Daubert motions on May 27.

The Fixodent suit was brought by Marianne and Daniel Chapman, of Florida, who claim that Procter and Gamble failed to warn consumers that their denture adhesive contained zinc, which can enter the body at high levels when the denture cream is used, leading to permanent injuries from zinc poisoning.

All federal lawsuits over zinc poisoning from Fixodent denture cream have been centralized before Judge Altnoaga in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida for pretrial litigation. Individual complaints filed by dozens of people throughout the United States have been consolidated to avoid duplicative discovery, inconsistent pretrial rulings from different judges and to serve the convenience of the court, the parties and the witnesses.

The plaintiffs allege that they suffered severe and permanent neurological damage from denture creme zinc poisoning.

Of course, Procter and Gamble makers of Fixodent deny the allegations.

Stay tuned.....

Previous:

Denture Adhesives Draw Food and Drug Administration Attention

Video: Zinc in Denture Creams Implicated in Neurological Disease

Denture Cream and Zinc Toxicity?

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