Heygood, Orr & Pearson: Los Angeles Court Orders Watson Pharmaceuticals To Produce Documents, Provide Depositions in Fentanyl Patch Death Lawsuit

LOS ANGELES – Attorneys from Dallas’ Heygood, Orr & Pearson are announcing a Los Angeles Superior Court ruling that will require executives from Watson Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NYSE: WPI) and its subsidiary companies to testify under oath and produce key documents as part of a lawsuit over the death of a 37-year-old woman who died while using the company’s fentanyl patch.

LOS ANGELES – Attorneys from Dallas’ Heygood, Orr & Pearson are announcing a Los Angeles Superior Court ruling that will require executives from Watson Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NYSE: WPI) and its subsidiary companies to testify under oath and produce key documents as part of a lawsuit over the death of a 37-year-old woman who died while using the company’s fentanyl patch.

Attorney Michael Heygood represents the parents of Nicole Bristol, who died on Feb. 9, 2008, hours after applying a fentanyl patch manufactured by Corona, Calif.-based Watson. Fentanyl is a powerful narcotic painkiller that is often applied by a time-released adhesive patch. The drug is up to 100 times more powerful than morphine and often prescribed for chronic pain.

In the Los Angeles lawsuit, Monika Standing, et al. v. Watson Pharmaceuticals Inc., et al., No. BC-405990, Ms. Bristol’s parents say their daughter suffered a lethal overdose as a result of a defective Watson fentanyl patch. Although the package insert in Ms. Bristol’s prescription said she should have received 1.7 ng/ml of fentanyl, autopsy results showed that she died with 15 ng/ml of fentanyl in her system. Fentanyl has been found to be lethal at a blood level of 3 ng/ml, with an average lethal concentration of 8 ng/ml.

The lawsuit says Watson officials used a faulty and unsafe “reservoir” design that is subject to manufacturing errors and can allow lethal amounts of the drug to leak onto a patient’s skin. Although many competing companies utilize a “matrix” design that makes leaks impossible, Watson continues to use the “reservoir” design despite several recalls of Watson fentanyl patches and numerous lawsuits over related deaths around the country.

In the Bristol lawsuit, Watson has consistently objected to the family’s requests for the company’s executives, representatives and employees to testify under oath about its fentanyl products and to produce documents related to its manufacturing processes and related problems in the production of the Watson pain patch.

“With this court order, we will finally be able to see the key documents and get answers to important questions we’ve been waiting to ask for more than a year,” says Mr. Heygood, lead counsel for the Bristol family. “This company should have to answer for making a product that we believe is the sole reason Ms. Bristol isn’t here today.”

The ruling signed March 11, 2011, by Judge Richard E. Rico orders Watson to produce company documents and emails requested by Mr. Heygood and other attorneys for the Bristol family by April 11, and for the company to make employees and corporate representatives available for depositions between April 11 and June 11.

“We are hopeful that this ruling finally convinces Watson Pharmaceuticals to take seriously the many deaths around the country related to their fentanyl patches, like the death of Nicole Bristol,” says Mr. Heygood.

In 2007, Mr. Heygood and fellow firm attorney Jim Orr helped the family of a Florida man win a $5.5 million verdict in the nation’s first federal trial over a defective fentanyl patch. The following year, the two attorneys won a $16.5 million verdict in Chicago, Illinois, for the family of a mother of three who died while using a fentanyl patch.

For more information, contact Bruce Vincent at 800-559-4534 or bruce@androvett.com.

Heygood, Orr & Pearson is a business litigation and personal injury law firm, based in Dallas, Texas. We have worked with executives, business owners, and individuals to try over 200 cases to a jury verdict. These cases include lawsuits involving business disputes, life-altering personal injury, defective products, dangerous prescription drugs and more. Michael Heygood, Jim Orr and Eric Pearson were named to the Super Lawyers® list for 2008, 2009 and 2010 by Law & Politics magazine, a supplement to Texas Monthly. This honor is bestowed upon the top 5% of all lawyers in Texas. Additionally, Michael Heygood and Jim Orr are Board Certified in Personal Injury Trial Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization and in Civil Trial Advocacy Law by the National Board of Trial Advocacy. Our law firm is AV-rated, the highest legal rating available from the leading law firm rating service, Martindale Hubbell.

Dave Moore
Androvett Legal Media
2501 Oak Lawn Avenue #650
Dallas, TX 75219

This release was published on openPR.