Melissa Martinez (00:05):
Okay, so welcome to my old and good friends, Tara Sutton and Tracy Finken. I’m so happy to have you here today to talk about a super important, I mean, I think as a woman and of a certain age, especially Depo Provera is something that has been very familiar to us for many years. And so now that we’re hearing about this litigation, there’s tons of questions out there and I know that you’re both very experienced in all of these kinds of litigation. So thought you would be the perfect people to come and tell us a little bit about the litigation and what’s going on.
Tracy Finken (00:42):
Thank you for having us. It’s clearly a really important topic for women to know about and to get the word out across the country because as you mentioned, our age, we grew up with it being marketed to us very, very heavily by doctors and pharmaceutical companies for the past 25 to 30 years as a really safe and effective form of birth control and convenient because an injectable that’s given every three months instead of a daily pill that you have to take, but as people might be aware, it really comes along with some serious and significant risks with recent studies showing a very highly increased risk of meningioma with Depo-Provera use. And for those who aren’t aware of meningioma is a type of benign brain tumor and people think, well, it’s benign. It’s not that big of a deal, but that’s not true. These tumors come with a lot of really significant neurological and cognitive injuries and symptoms and they need to be operated upon sometimes multiple times. Sometimes they’re inoperable and that comes with its own set of injuries and they’re really debilitating for these women.
Melissa Martinez (01:52):
I’ve been reading online a bit, which is good and bad at times, and I’ve read a bit about the bone density side effect as well. Is that even a consideration for this particular litigation or No?
Tara Sutton (02:05):
I think that the focus of this litigation is on meningioma. There has been a warning on Debra Provera about bone density and the loss of bone density for a while. So really the focus of the cases that we’re looking at now are on this particular tumor, which there is this dramatic increased risk of women experiencing who have had a certain amount of doses of Depo-Provera and it’s meningioma and it’s something that when you go to your doctor and you’re undergo testing, it is a diagnosis that you receive and that is a particular type of tumor, which is what this litigation is focusing on.
Melissa Martinez (02:45):
So are all of the parties that are involved in this so far? I mean I think there’s some questions out there about generics and whether that’s involved or included in this. Is that even a consideration here?
Tara Sutton (02:58):
That actually is a pretty big issue, and I’ve been an old lawyer. I’ve been doing this for 30 some years and some of the first cases that our firm handled involved Depro Provera, this is a birth control drug that has been a wash in controversy almost since its inception and it’s been around for a long time. It was developed by Upjohn and decades ago and it wasn’t eventually approved for contraceptive use until 1992, and that was in part because of health concerns around that drug. It was eventually bought by Pfizer right before the patent was running out in 2002. Then Pfizer rolled it into what we call a generic and authorized generic manufacturer, but they owned called the Greenstone. So we are very much focused on suing Pfizer and the generic authorized manufacturers of the drug, including Greenstone and other companies who are considered generic authorized manufacturers of the drug because there are certain legal hurdles going after generic drugs or harms that their drugs caused. That’s why we’re focused on Pfizer who had the ability to change the label and to warn about this risk and the companies that were authorized to manufacture the drug.
Tracy Finken (04:25):
Just to be clear, when it comes to an authorized generic, that’s an actual product that’s manufactured by Pfizer. So it is Pfizer’s product, it’s Pfizer’s label. They’re just distributing it through a subsidiary of Pfizer as an authorized generic, and it’s to gain some market share in the generic world. It’s not a true generic in the strict sense of the word.
Melissa Martinez (04:47):
Okay. That’s really great information and thank you for the clarification. Part of the reason that I was so interested in talking to you, we’re all about the same age, and so we’re getting questions from friends and stuff. You make it feel a little bit more personal. I’d say. I know one of your firms has been around for almost 60 years, the other one maybe 80 years. So what I found really fascinating on this one is firms like yours that have been around a long time and have people like you that have been doing this for so many years really have an understanding. You’re living through all the different evolutions of the way these MDLs work. I’m seeing as you are as well, very new firms popping into the scene, younger lawyers who are fresh to this, and it’s a little intimidating at times to understand what the timeline is and how you should be preparing behind the scenes how you should be setting expectations for your clients. So using those parameters, what would you advise to folks that are learning and just getting into this,
Tracy Finken (05:53):
Do your homework, vet your cases, get medical records, talk to your client. I think people come into the mass tort world and think, well, this is something that’s easier than regular litigation. It’s actually not. It’s much more complicated. It’s more complex. You’re dealing with giants in the industry in terms of the defense bar, and it’s really important that you get your facts straight. You do your homework in terms of corporate and regulatory history, so you’re suing the right parties. You do your homework in terms of you have such defenses like preemption and the statute of repose and dalbert and things like that, which are giant hurdles that we face in MDLs and mass court litigation all the time and really do your work. You have to really vet your cases and get records. A lot of people don’t do that and it’s not good practice. It’s not good for your clients and it’s not good for the plaintiff’s. Lawyers
Tara Sutton (06:45):
Agree wholeheartedly. I’ve litigated against Pfizer for decades and no one fights harder. So you have to have your ducks in a row and do your homework and starting with having people who are trained to talk to your clients to get the information that you need to know to see whether or not they have a case. And that starts with proof of use and did they in fact get Depro Provera? How many doses did they get? Who was the manufacturer of that product? And that requires ordering medical records. I think in this case it’s probably also going to require ordering medical bills and sometimes just having an honest discussion with your client, because this product has been in use for so long, there are issues that make it harder for us to get records. So having your client actually go back to their prescribing physician and asking for those records, sometimes that’s the fastest way to do it.
(07:43)
And having that discussion with your client, and you’re going to have to maybe have it over and over again about the importance of doing that. And then the second thing is you need proof of injury, and that is the diagnosis of meningioma and getting those records and making sure, because there are other types of brain tumors, there are a lot of other types of brain tumors and making sure that you have a diagnosis of meningioma. And then Tracy mentioned this as well, there are, and you did too. There are issues. This drug has been in use for so long. There are issues with respect to statute of limitations and statute of repose, and that really is a state by state analysis. So you need to understand what triggers the statute of limitation in the state where your client resides. And some states are more generous than other states.
(08:39)
I live in Minnesota. It’s discovery of the injury and discovery of a causal connection between the drug and the injury. Other states are not that generous. It can be merely being prescribed the drug or having first injury. So you really have to understand what the statute of limitations for the various states where you may be speaking with your clients. So it’s again, just as Tracy said, it is very much doing your homework, asking the right questions, having your staff ask the right questions and getting the right information to verify what your client is telling you in order to figure out is this a case or not a case. So you can give the proper advice to your client.
Tracy Finken (09:21):
Just to put a finer point on what Tara said about getting the records, this isn’t a typical pharmaceutical case where you can order pharmacy records. This drug was given in off, it was an injectable contraceptive that was given by gynecologists typically or family care providers. And there aren’t going to be pharmaceutical records out there. In most cases. There are exceptions, but it’s very few cases that you can just order your local pharmacy records and get proof of use. You have to do some investigative work. And that requires going way back, this drug was approved in 1992, so you have to get medication lists, you have to dig through the records, and some doctors actually track which manufacturer’s product they used. Some do not. You might have to get insurance records to really track this down. This isn’t as simple as a typical pharmaceutical case where you can just get a pharmacy printout and have proof of use that way. It’s going to require some investigative work.
Tara Sutton (10:19):
I kind of think about my kids when I have to get the immunization records for the various annual physicals or sports physicals. And if you think about what those records look like, a lot of times there’s a bar number with a manufacturer id, but that’s a record that the doctor holds.
Melissa Martinez (10:34):
So again, people, I’m reading different things online. I think that there are law firms out there who have wonderful sources, some background information. I’ve also read some things that are saying you’re running out of time or get in there quickly. I mean, are there really some serious upcoming deadlines that people need to be aware of, not just talking about as a claimant or a plaintiff?
Tracy Finken (10:56):
I mean, as Tara said before, it’s going to be state dependent. So it really depends on the law, the state of where the client is from on what their deadlines look like under a discovery rule. It’s going to look very different than the states that have a hard statute based on date of injury. And for those people who do have a hard statute based on the date of injury, their time may be running out depending on when they were diagnosed or their time may have already run out depending on when they’re diagnosed. So it’s not something that I would wait on. If you’ve been diagnosed with a meningioma and you definitely know you use Depo-Provera, I would certainly reach out to an attorney and get a consultation and start looking into gathering your records if you can, just because the deadlines are going to vary honestly from state to state.
Melissa Martinez (11:42):
So in terms of an MDL though, what does that look like and how do you as again, giving advice to a firm, newer lawyer to this kind of litigation, how would you advise them to look and think about that?
Tara Sutton (11:55):
Well, an MDL hasn’t been established yet. I think that probably will occur, but that doesn’t relieve an attorney of their obligations if they have a client that comes to them to investigate the case and help determine when or if the statute of limitations has started running because as Tracy said, it’s state by state dependent and based on where you live, your statute of limitations may or may not have run. And as attorneys looking at these cases, I think it’s incumbent to speak with your client and get as much information as you can about their medical history, about when they received injections, how many they received when they started becoming symptomatic, and then when they were ultimately then diagnosed. Because all of these, based on where the state you live, can be things that trigger the statute of limitations. And then you need to do an analysis so you can tell that client, can I go forward or not go forward with this case based on the information that I have? And that’s why I think this is really a case because of the long history of the drug where there’s a lot of work to do.
Tracy Finken (13:08):
Yeah, and another question to ask the client is when they first became aware that their meningioma could be related to their use of Depo-Provera, because that’s going to be very different from client to client, there have been two recent studies this year which showed a significantly increased risk of meningioma for Depo-Provera users. One came out in April of 2024 and one was more recent. In the early fall, they just made some of the national news, and that’s the first time certainly that I saw some more widespread media coverage. There are other studies that were earlier, but I don’t think that they were in as big of journals, so they weren’t out there in the public domain as far as I’ve seen in terms of my research. But that’s an important question to ask your clients is when they first became aware that their meningioma might be related to their use of Depo-Provera. And
Melissa Martinez (13:57):
That’s a good point. That makes a lot of sense. So I’m sure that your staff and you have already been talking to people, how are you helping your clients in terms of expectations and their timelines and helping train your staff? They’re hearing a lot of very sensitive stories. It’s hard on them and it’s hard on the entire team, but so what’s some good advice that you would have in terms of preparing your staff and setting the client expectations?
Tara Sutton (14:24):
Well, I think, so two questions. One, internally, what are we doing? We spend a lot of time meeting talking about how we speak to clients, how we triage, and just so we’re all on the same page. But the thing that I think is in my experience has been pretty unique about this case is my team is they’re all women. I can say that they’re very passionate, very concerned, and I think they all have gone through some of the same of women our age where this was very common form of birth control. So there’s a certain level of passion that I think that I want to see in our team and really caring about the women who’ve been exposed to this and sharing their stories as they come into our firm. As part of the triage, we meet regularly to talk about what we’re seeing, so we’re all understanding what this injury looks like and how it’s impacting our potential clients.
(15:19)
And I think having regular meetings to discuss that is really important to making sure we do the best work that we can for our clients, our potential clients. In terms of when you speak with the clients, the external part of it, I mean, I think it’s really important to set client expectations and explaining the legal process and how long it can take. And that’s the difficult part. And because most of the people that are coming to us, they probably have never had an experience with the legal system, and it’s a pretty scary and intimidating thing, and they don’t always know how the legal process works. And honestly, sometimes we don’t know yet either. This is a vast evolving case and we don’t have certain deadlines or timelines yet. So just being very transparent with our clients and giving ’em the best information when we have it and giving that to them as soon as we have it.
(16:17)
But at the same time, letting them know that this is a process, it’s going to take a while and we’re fighting, but we don’t know where everything’s going to end up. But just keeping those communication channels open, whether it’s by phone call or email or text, I mean, I think is very, very important. And each client is different. Some clients, they don’t want to have to talk to you every day or every other day. They have their own level of stress that they want to have with the legal process. So understanding that as well. So what is the best way to communicate with them and how do they want their lawyers to communicate with them or the paralegals to communicate with them? And kind of getting an understanding of that I think is really important. So you build that trust.
Tracy Finken (16:59):
It’s something that this case is like any other MDL or mass toward, I should say, and it’s going to take years to get to a resolution or to a trial even. And we usually give that as a rule of thumb to our clients out of the gate. But I tell my staff to always treat our clients as if they were family members because they’re really going through a tough time. These women have a lot of residual injury. It’s not something where pure benign brain tumor and you think, well, maybe that’s not so bad, but that’s not the case. I mean, when they have to get this treated and they have surgery, it’s a craniotomy. So they’re opening up their skull, taking a piece of their skull to do brain surgery and then putting the piece of the skull back in place. It’s a significant recovery. And many, many of these women have residual injuries from that surgery, so it doesn’t completely, they might have memory issues, they might have dizziness, IAL issues, vision loss. We’ve seen women who have gone blind, partially blind from it. There’s a lot of residual injuries and they’re really struggling. So my rule of thumb to my staff is you treat every client as how you would want your family member to be treated. And that’s just our general rule of thumb.
Melissa Martinez (18:13):
I mean, I’ve seen it over the last 10 years start. I think the first big MDL that I’m involved with or watched from the beginning through now, not completely done, would be TBM is actually it. I was going to say roundup, but that amount of time and losing client communication in between there and then tracking folks down again, when people may move or get divorced, change phone number, or some people just do not have email and it’s a mother is somebody who I still can’t teach to use her emails. Have you found that, I mean these days, what are you finding your most successful way to stay in touch? And I’ll give you an example. I know one of you guys worked on juul, and I remember speaking with somebody who told recently that said to me, shockingly, the jewel demographic were kind of younger people, that you would think that by text you would be able to get in touch with them easily or that they’d be very responsive and they actually were not.
Tara Sutton (19:13):
That’s the truth. I mean, I think that’s part of these communications that you have from the outset with your client is like, how do you want us to reach you? Because I think you’re right, it varies. I mean, some people want to get a phone call and they want to get it after work and other people respond to email. But then you have folks that if you need documents back, they don’t have a scanner, so you mail and might be the best way to communicate with them. And in this age group, what I’m finding a little bit now is send out envelopes that are pre-stamped or FedEx envelopes. It can just be returned. That might be the best way of communicating. You just have to understand your client, but you’re really right about bringing that up. And it’s really important not because if you do get to a settlement phase, which is where we hope this all goes, but that couldn’t take years. It could take 2, 3, 4 years.
Tracy Finken (20:09):
But
Tara Sutton (20:10):
Knowing how to reach your client is absolutely vital to the success of the litigation. And that’s something if you’re a younger lawyer or don’t have a lot of support, these are things that you don’t want to learn the hard way and hopefully are things that you can kind of get a system set up in the beginning as you’re first communicating with your client.
Tracy Finken (20:31):
We also hammer home to our clients that they have to stay in touch with us if they’re moving, if they’re changing phones, email. And we also always, always ask for an alternative emergency contact for these clients, for any client because people time passes, they’re living their lives and isn’t necessarily their first and foremost thought is not to, oh, I better tell my lawyers that I have a new phone number. So we always ask for an emergency contact as a last resort in case we can’t get in touch with our clients because there’s so many times where they just don’t realize that they haven’t updated us in terms of communication references.
Melissa Martinez (21:09):
Well, we are almost out of time, and with respect to your time, I’d just love just kind of giving me your closing thoughts or takeaway, the most important thing you’d like to pass on to some of these firms. It’s up to you in
Tara Sutton (21:22):
Terms of things to remember. I mean, what should you be doing now? You should get to know the case. You should read the science and you can call or email either one of us. We will share that. I think it’s important that you learn the history of the drug. There actually have been books written about Depo-Provera know it’s history, know the parties that are involved. And then there’s also the legal analysis, which we’ve alluded to, which is the statute of limitations and the statute of repose, making lists of states that are concerning. That might be red flags if you get a client coming in because the statute of limitations is so restrictive. I mean, I think it’s also important to know about the warnings on the drug and the history of the warnings. It’s an important piece of the liability case because this is a side effect that is not warned about in the United States, but it’s warned about in other countries.
(22:14)
And that in our world and the mass tort world is a very good fact for us in terms of liability. But I think that is something that everyone needs to understand. And then most importantly is getting to know your client and making sure you get the appropriate records so you can analyze the case and give your client the best advice because that is something that we see depends on the case, but sometimes that’s where it can hurt all cases if attorneys aren’t doing their job in terms of getting the medical records so they can evaluate their case fairly and properly.
Tracy Finken (22:49):
I would just add to that, as far as the science goes, it’s we’re looking for people who used it for a year, which is four injections, who have a diagnosis of a brain meningioma and start gathering the records, start gathering the proof of use, and if you’re intending to file something at this point in federal court, reach out to one of us to talk about it because there are certain venues that we would want to discuss prior to cases being filed there. It’s something that’s really important before an MDL is created from the plaintiff’s bar that we have these discussions and we’re all on the same page in terms of litigation strategy. So that would be my other piece of advice.
Melissa Martinez (23:30):
So you’re saying you’re stressing, it’s really important. People are not running wild, should stay coordinated. The benefit of the system and the clients
Tracy Finken (23:39):
100%. Let’s communicate amongst the people who are involved in this litigation the end of the day, that’s going to be the best thing for our clients if we’re all on the same page on litigation strategy and filing strategy.
Melissa Martinez (23:53):
Completely
Tara Sutton (23:53):
Agree.
Melissa Martinez (23:54):
Well, thank you so much and we are going to send people your way. Not only do you and your firms have wonderful strong experience reputations. I know both of you are science girls, which is really impressive. I mean, it is for this, I think as you were talking about understanding what’s behind the scenes and what the injuries are.
Tracy Finken (24:15):
Thank you so much for having us. I really
Melissa Martinez (24:17):
Appreciate. Thank you. Thank you. We’ll see you soon. Thanks. Thanks. Bye.
Susan Barfield (24:21):
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