Cases Picked for Xarelto Trials in 2017

The lawsuit was filed by Joseph Boudreaux in December 2014. He says he used Xarelto for less than a month before he began bleeding internally. He was hospitalized to receive several blood transfusions — Case No. 2:14-cv-02720.

The lawsuit will go to trial in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, where Judge Eldon E. Fallon presides.

Judge Fallon also picked three more cases for the next trials.

The second trial will involve Joseph Orr, the husband of a woman who used Xarelto for about a month before she died from bleeding in the brain (cerebral hemorrhage). The case will go to trial in Louisiana — Case No. 2:15-cv-03708.

The third trial will involve Dora Mingo, a woman who was injured by gastrointestinal bleeding after using Xarelto to treat blood clots. The case will go to trial in Mississippi — Case No. 2:15-cv-03469.

The fourth trial will involve William Henry, a man who died of gastrointestinal bleeding after taking Xarelto for atrial fibrillation. The case will go to trial in Texas — Case No. 2:15-cv-00224.

Bleeding is the most serious risk associated with all blood-thinning medications, but when Xarelto was introduced it had no reversal agent. Even so, it was marketed as superior to Coumadin (warfarin), a blood-thinner that is easily de-activated with Vitamin K.

As of mid-August, 7,254 Xarelto lawsuits were centralized in Multi-District Litigation (MDL No. 2592). The outcome of each “bellwether” trials is not binding on other lawsuits in the MDL. Instead, lawyers use the outcomes to determine the value of certain injuries during settlement negotiations.

Source: Reuters