Personal Injury Law

Discovery Deadlines And Expert Witness Deposition Dates Are Extended To Allow Time For Additional Document Review

(Posted by Tom Lamb at DrugInjuryWatch.com)

We learned in April 2010 from U.S. District Judge Rodney W. Sippel, who is presiding over the NuvaRing federal court MDL, that the trial for the first of several bellwether, or test, cases in the NuvaRing MDL was scheduled to start in June 2011.

Now, due to some recent changes to the respective discovery schedules, it appears that the first trials in the federal court NuvaRing MDL litigation, as well as the New Jersey state court "mass tort" consolidation, will not begin until the spring or summer of 2012.

As for the MDL, back in mid-September 2010 Judge Sippel issued an Order extending the discovery schedule for the federal court NuvaRing bellwether case trials.  The new cut-off date for all fact discovery, now, is June 24, 2011 -- meaning it has been pushed back about six months from the initial date. The final deadline for the completion of all expert witness depositions is now set for February 20, 2012.

Moving to the New Jersey NuvaRing litigation, on October 6, 2010 Judge Brian R. Martinotti issued NuvaRing Case Management Order (CMO) #8, which had attached to a Rider which showed the changes made "to coordinate the NJ matter with the MDL matter":

• All fact discovery shall be completed by June 24, 2011.
• Plaintiffs' experts shall be named and reports shall be served by July 25, 2011.
• Depositions of Plaintiffs' experts shall be completed by October 3, 2011.
• Defendants' experts shall be named and reports shall be served by October 31, 2011.
• Depositions of Defendants' experts shall be completed by January 16, 2012.

While no trial date has yet been scheduled for the first NuvaRing bellwether case in the federal court MDL nor the NJ mass tort litigation, given the changes above, it is expected that the first NuvaRing trials will start sometime in the middle part of 2012.

The reason for this delay, in part, is that the Plaintiffs' lawyers need additional time to review some drug company documents that have only recently been made fully available to them, following a discovery dispute ruling by the Court.

As soon as we learn the scheduled dates for the first NuvaRing trials in the MDL and in New Jersey, we will let you know.

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