Litigators of the Week: After Two Big Wins for Plaintiffs, A Defense Verdict for Infant Formula Makers
November 8, 2024, AmLaw Litigation Daily
AmLaw Litigation Daily, for the second week in a row, named a Covington lawyer as Litigator of the Week. This week, Phyllis Jones was recognized for successfully defending Mead Johnson in a product liability suit where plaintiffs sought to link the milk-based infant formula the company makes to necrotizing enterocolitis, or NEC—a life-threatening intestinal disease that affects premature infants.
Plaintiff’s counsel asked state court jurors in St. Louis, Missouri for $6.2 billion in damages in closing arguments. But, after four hours of deliberations last week, jurors returned a complete defense verdict for the company.
Phyllis stated that the team’s trial strategy focused on, “Causation, causation, causation. We wanted to be clear that NEC is a devastating condition that, tragically, can affect all preterm babies, no matter what they are fed. In this case, the plaintiff had received an overwhelming amount of his mother’s own breast milk, proving that point, but he also had a number of other risk factors for NEC independent of his feeding. We also tried to emphasize that a product this essential to NICU care could not be ‘unreasonably dangerous.’ The jury ultimately heard from seven different neonatologists, and everyone, including plaintiff’s experts, said the same thing. These products save lives.”
“In financial terms,” Phyllis said, “the stakes were massive: in closing, plaintiff’s counsel asked for $6.2 billion in damages. But, more fundamentally, what is at issue in this litigation more broadly is the existential question that plaintiffs’ counsel’s allegations raise about these products. Preterm infant formula is not just a 'nice to have' product. It is given to critically ill preterm babies—who must be fed—when, for some reason, a mother’s breast milk or human donor milk is not available or insufficient to address acute growth needs. So, we are defending a critical NICU resource, something the American Academy of Pediatrics has described as a ‘routine and necessary part of care’ for preterm babies.”
In addition to Phyllis, the Mead Johnson trial team was co-led by Emily Ullman, and included Kathleen Paley, Nicole Antoine, Alice Phillips, Elizabeth Fouhey, Sumner Truax, and Ethan Treacy.
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