Plaintiffs who sued pharmaceutical companies soon after the 2001 arrest of a Kansas City pharmacist who diluted patients’ drugs to enrich himself received much larger settlement payouts than those who waited, a new court filing shows.
Attorneys for nearly two dozen of Robert Courtney’s victims or victims’ family members who are challenging the settlement amounts they received outlined the widely varying payouts to Courtney’s hundreds of victims in a filing Monday with a Missouri appeals court, The Kansas City Star reported (http://bit.ly/14AySH8 ).
Courtney pleaded guilty in 2002 to diluting drugs used by his patients. Courtney, now 60, has been serving a 30-year sentence in federal prison.
His patients, or their survivors, sued drug manufacturers Eli Lilly and Co. and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., arguing the companies were negligent for not uncovering Courtney’s crimes, which allowed him to make inflated profits. The companies denied the allegations but agreed in 2002 to settle the more than $70 million in claims.
For more than a year, 23 of Courtney’s more than 400 victims or their families have pushed to reopen the lawsuits, contending the settlements were improper and did not allow them to receive the full value of their claims.
Plaintiffs also were required to agree to the settlement without knowing how much they would receive, how the amounts would be determined or how many other victims were in the settlement pool. Their lawyers say the lack of information made it impossible for the plaintiffs to make informed decisions.
Georgia Hayes, the first of Courtney’s victims to file claims, settled with the drug companies in October 2002. More than 300 plaintiffs who filed after Hayes received substantially smaller settlements, according to court records filed by victims and their families who hope to reopen the settlement.
The filing said Hayes received drug company settlements totaling $2.9 million. More than 300 cases on file at the time of her settlement received average payouts of $199,500, the filing claimed. A group of 84 plaintiffs who filed after the Hayes settlement got an average of about $23,200, court records said.
“From the perspective of the Courtney plaintiffs, the most salient factor governing the size of any given award was the filing date of the complaint against Lilly and BMS,” the filing said.
Lawyers for the drug companies have not yet filed their response, which is due in July.
Carla Cox, director of Lilly Oncology Communications, said Wednesday that the settlement process was fair, the original plaintiffs were represented by counsel and also noted that Lilly was not involved in the apportionment process.
A spokeswoman for Bristol-Myers Squib did not immediately return a call seeking comment Thursday.
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Information from: The Kansas City Star, http://www.kcstar.com
