Yaz Lawsuits Moving Forward in Federal Court
According to a recent hearing in the federal court handling the Yaz and Yasmin MDL lawsuits, the cases are moving forward through the discovery stage. During the discovery period, the parties exchange information and documents and conduct depositions. To date, it is estimated that approximately 30,000,000 pages of documents have been exchanged. These documents include information on the risk of venous thrombotic events such as stroke, deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism for users of Yaz and Yasmin among other vital information.
The Yaz attorneys have also been conducting depositions of corporate representatives of the Defendants. A deposition allows the Yaz attorneys to ask employees of the Defendant corporations questions about Yaz and Yasmin. The individual being deposed, the deponent, must answer the questions under oath just as he or she would in a court of law. Depositions are often very helpful in developing lawsuits and preparing them for trial.
The parties hope to have the first MDL Yaz lawsuit ready for trial in September 2011. At this time it is not clear which case(s) will be chosen for trial and/or how the trial case choices will be made. The parties must decide what factors will be used to choose the trial cases. E.g. will the Plaintiff have suffered a stroke, pulmonary embolism or deep vein thrombosis? Or will she have had her gallbladder removed or is she suffering from cardiac arrhythmias? Attorneys for the Yaz Plaintiffs hope a procedure for choosing which cases will be tried first is in place within the coming months.
The next Yaz lawsuit status conference is scheduled for mid-September 2010.