Pennsylvania Family Wins $2 Million in Bendectin Suit

Pennsylvania - New Jersey - New York - Nationwide

CINCINNATI ENQUIRER
By Staff Reporter
DECEMBER 17, 1987

A jury in Philadelphia awarded $2 million Tuesday to a family that blamed its son's birth defects on a morning sickness pill made by Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc. of suburban Cincinnati. Jeffrey Blum, 6, and his parents said the drug Bendectin caused his club feet. The decision - to award $1 million compensatory and $1 million punitive damages - followed an eight-week trial in state court. It was the first jury to award punitive damages against the company based in Reading in a Bendectin suit.

Thomas R. Kline, the Pennsylvania family's attorney, attributed the victory in part to a key Merrell Dow study that said rabbits were born with club feet after females were fed Bendectin. Kline said Merrell Dow did not fully report that in-house study to the Food & Drug Administration, which approved Bendectin as an anti-nausea medicine. Jeffrey's mother said she took two Bendectin pills a day for most of her pregnancy, starting on the 30th day and throughout the period when limbs formed on her fetus. The jury said: Merrell Dow was negligent and that it failed to issue warnings about Bendectin hazards; Bendectin was a substantial contributing factor in Jeffrey's deformity; Bendectin created a high risk of harm and Merrell Dow acted with "reckless indifference." Company spokesman William R. Donaldson said the trial was rife with errors and the company would take "all necessary steps to reverse this verdict."

Bendectin was sold to more than 33 million women between 1956 and 1983 when it was removed from the market voluntarily. The company said Bendectin was safe and it blamed mounting lawsuits for the marketing decision. Merrell Dow never denied that some youngsters born to women who took Bendectin had birth defects. Rather, the company said there was no proof that the pill caused the deformities. Further, Merrell Dow said there were no significant differences among birth defects in the general population and those among youngsters whose mothers used Bendectin.

Kline called that argument a "smoke screen" and said he was able to pierce those generalities by bringing a specific child and mother into court and refuting Merrell Dow assertions that other factors caused the deformities. "It's a breakthrough case," Kline said. Merrell Dow has won most of the Bendectin suits that went to trial. It is appealing those it lost. Attorneys for the families also are appealing verdicts they lost.