The news in recent years has been full of information about drug lawsuits regarding dangerous pharmaceutical medications. Some of these drugs have been pulled off the market after class action product liability lawsuits were filed by drug injury lawyers, while others remain readily available.
Pharmaceutical companies have proven they are willing to rush products to market before sufficient testing has been done to determine their dangerous side effects. But even drugs that have been considered relatively safe can have disastrous consequences.
When you take a prescribed medication, you rely on its ability to help treat your specific medical problem. Many drugs do just that and have been safely used with reasonable side effects, if any, for years. Sadly, with an ever-growing market for prescription medications, some new drugs – and even some that have long been in use – do much more harm than good.
Have you or a loved one been injured due to a bad drug interaction? Contact one of your experienced drug injury lawyers to learn more. Contact us at (215) 569-0900 to schedule your free initial consultation today.
Why Hire an Attorney for a Drug Lawsuit?
Wapner Newman Is Dedicated to Helping Victims of Drug Injuries
When you are injured by a defective or dangerous drug, you are up against one of the most powerful industries in the world. Pharmaceutical companies are large and retain teams of attorneys and aggressive insurance companies. They’re looking to protect their profits and their name. The methods they use to keep you from gaining compensation can be coercive — and even illegal.
The experienced attorneys at Wapner Newman have years of experience dealing with these companies, their attorneys, and their insurance providers. Our drug injury lawyers in Philadelphia are not afraid to hold negligent pharmaceutical companies accountable for their dangerous products and will not back down until we have secured a settlement that addresses all of your damages.
Our verdicts and settlements speak for themselves. In both class action and private lawsuits, our top-rated personal injury attorneys have been able to help victims of dangerous drugs obtain large settlements that help to cover the costs of medical expenses, lost wages, emotional distress, and physical pain and suffering.
Pharmaceutical companies can be ruthless when trying to disprove your claim. You deserve an aggressive, experienced product liability attorney in New Jersey on your side who will fight for your rights and help you obtain the compensation you deserve.
Can I File a Drug Lawsuit if a Drug Was Recalled?
Drug recalls happen frequently, due to contamination of a batch or the discovery that something is wrong with the project. In some cases, the drug company will issue a recall directly. In other cases, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will order the recall.
Many manufacturers are responsible and will pull products if they receive reports of people being harmed from the medications. However, other companies put profits before safety and continue to sell products despite evidence that their drugs cause harm.
A recall does not prevent you from filing a drug injury lawsuit.
Talk to a Philadelphia Drug Injury Lawyer about Your Case
Drug injury lawsuits are a type of product liability lawsuit. For patients harmed by a defective drug, settlements and jury awards can help to ease the suffering and pay for medical expenses.
Filing a lawsuit allows you to receive needed financial compensation. The damages awarded in these lawsuits can be for both economic and non-economic damages. They are designed to ensure you are in the same financial position you would be in if the harm had never occurred.
In a civil drug injury lawsuit, you may recover the following damages:
- Past and future medical bills, including hospital stays, treatments and doctor visits
- Other medical expenses, such as for physical or occupational therapy or equipment
- Rehabilitation care costs
- Lost wages or salary from missed work
- Pain and suffering endured as a result
- Emotional distress
- Punitive damages
- Loss of consortium (a legal term for losses of a relationship with your spouse)
- Wrongful death.
How much compensation could you receive? There’s no easy answer to that question. It can vary widely from case to case. The amounts are generally based on the severity of a victim’s injuries, the extent of the damages, their medical expenses, and future financial needs.
Why Choose a Drug Injury Lawyer From Wapner Newman?
When you file a lawsuit against a doctor, manufacturer, or drug distributor, an army of lawyers and insurance adjusters typically descend upon your case, trying to prove that the entity they represent is innocent of any fault.
At Wapner Newman, we understand how daunting this process can be. That is why we are committed to giving victims of drug injuries like you a fighting chance.
How do we compete with teams of lawyers and insurance adjusters? We have our own team of lawyers ready to attack every case like it is the most important case we’ve encountered. This is because we understand that your case may be one of the most significant events you deal with in your life. We know that your health and your livelihood depend on the quality of our work.
Our team takes pride in our ability to act as quickly and decisively as large corporations do. Wapner Newman drug injury lawyers have decades of combined experience, which we use to move cases forward efficiently. But unlike corporate lawyers, we also empathize with what the victim is suffering. This means that we do whatever we can to ease the difficulty of your recovery.
Are you unable to get out of bed? One of our attorneys will be happy to meet you at home or in the hospital. Are mountains of paperwork overwhelming you? Our team can fill out and file forms for you. Is stress slowing down your recovery? We will keep you informed about the progress of your case and help you find assistance resources you need to reduce your stress.
Our law firm is committed to helping you fully recover from the harm you suffered. Getting you the compensation you deserve is just as important as providing a shoulder to lean on. If you need a lawyer who cares and listens, look no further than the compassionate team of Wapner Newman.
When you have suffered a drug injury, who can you turn to? The manufacturer of the drug may be more interested in protecting profits than your health, and even your doctor may be more afraid of a medical malpractice lawsuit than helping you recover. Where others might fail you, our law firm always fights for the rights of victims. Contact us today at (215) 569-0900 to schedule a free consultation.
How a Drug Injury Lawsuit Works
If you believe you’ve been wronged by a defective medication, the first step is to contact a Philadelphia drug injury lawyer. The attorneys at Wapner Newman have years of experience managing medication error lawsuits.
When you hire a Philadelphia medication error lawyer, they will work with you to achieve the goal of just and full compensation for the harm caused by a defective or dangerous drug. The lawyer will assist in gathering evidence that will support your case.
After your lawyer has assembled the facts, they will work to write a complaint on your behalf. It’s important that these complaints are filed in a timely manner. That’s because there are statutes of limitations at play in many cases, which means that after a certain date you cannot file a complaint.
What Happens in a Medication Error Lawsuit?
When your case begins, the discovery process is the first phase. This stage is where your Philadelphia medication error lawyer works to obtain relevant information and documents from the drug company. This collection of information is crucial as they prepare for court hearings and write motions about your case.
The discovery phase is about determining what the company knew. It’s important to learn what a company knew about the products it was creating and selling. In many drug injury cases, your attorney needs to discover evidence that a company knew that a product it was selling was considered dangerous, but sold it anyway.
If the medication injury is related to a recall, it’s likely your case might become part of a larger complaint. In such cases, plaintiffs from different parts of the country work through multidistrict litigation. The process takes a bit longer to complete but seeks to get a bigger settlement or verdict for all involved by combining the evidence from multiple affected parties.
In addition, your attorney may be working with medical and scientific experts to reinforce the issue that the medication you were given was defective.
What Is Needed to Prove a Successful Bad Drug Lawsuit?
A bad drug lawsuit works much like most other product liability cases. The first issue is whether you can prove that there was a defect in the medication and that the defect made the drugs dangerous to use.
There are three ways that a drug can be defective:
- A design defect in the medicine caused injuries or a side effect.
- A manufacturing defect made the medication dangerous.
- A marketing defect failed to alert users about severe side effects.
As is true in all personal injury cases, showing there was a defect is not enough. You also need to demonstrate that the medication was unreasonably dangerous to your health. Then you need to show that your injuries were the result of the dangerous drug.
That’s where the medical and scientific experts come in. They will need to testify on your behalf that the drug was defective. An experienced drug injury lawyer plays a key role here, working with these experts to get the results you deserve.
FAQs about Drug Injury Lawsuits
Answers to Your Most Important Drug Injury Questions
A drug injury can be devastating and raise many questions. And when you don’t know the answers to those questions, you may feel alone in your recovery journey. Here are some of the most frequently asked questions about what to do if you’ve been injured after taking a medication.
What do I do if a drug I take has been recalled?
Hopefully, your doctor will inform you about the recall as soon as possible. But if that doesn’t happen, you should take action as soon as you are aware of the recall. Contact your doctor immediately, and ask about other options. Alternatively, your pharmacist may be able to legally give you an alternative drug.
You should also contact our law firm promptly for a free consultation. We can help you determine what legal options you have and ensure you get medical advice that protects you from harm.
What happens when a drug is recalled?
Recalled drugs, whether prescription or over-the-counter, are pulled from circulation immediately. Individuals are advised not to take the medication and to contact their physician for advice on an alternative treatment. Typically, either your physician or pharmacist will advise you as soon as they learn that a medication has been recalled. As soon as you are advised about a recall, you should stop taking the drug.
If you continue to take a drug after being advised that it has been recalled, you may lose your right to sue another party for the harm you suffer. At a minimum, continuing to take the drug will probably decrease any compensation you receive from a lawsuit.
+How long does a drug lawsuit take?
Drug cases can take years to work their way through the court system. However, each defective drug lawsuit is different. Some will settle before ever going to trial. Others will end with a jury trial. Settlements usually take less time to resolve than jury trials. However, in complex cases like drug injuries, the difference can be relatively minor. While there is no way to be completely certain how long your lawsuit will take, we will give you an estimate relatively early, so you know what to prepare for.
Who do I sue in a drug injury lawsuit?
We will sue the party responsible for the injury you suffered. In general, this means that we sue the manufacturer of the drug. The manufacturer has a responsibility to properly test the drug and ensure that it is safe for use. And when it has failed to do so, it is almost always responsible for the harm caused by the drug.
But there are exceptions to this principle. Your doctor could be responsible instead. For example, if the doctor prescribed a drug despite knowing you had a condition that was contraindicated, the manufacturer wouldn’t be responsible. The manufacturer did its due diligence, but your doctor ignored the warning from the manufacturer.
There are even cases where we might sue a pharmacist or a distributor. If a distributor shipped the drug in a way that caused it to go bad or a pharmacist stored the drug unsafely, the injury you suffered could be due to those actions.
This is why we carefully investigate every case before taking any action.
How much does a drug injury lawyer cost?
At our law firm, we only take drug injury cases on contingency. This means you pay us only if we win. When we win money in a settlement or jury verdict, we take a percentage of that money as our fee. The more money we win for you, the more money our law firm gets. It is a win-win situation for everyone.
Drug injuries can be stressful and overwhelming. If you have further questions, you are welcome to ask us during your free case evaluation.
Contact a Philadelphia Drug Injury Lawyer
When you take a drug prescribed by your doctor, you expect your health to improve. Even if that drug has side effects, you expect to be warned in advance; and you expect that any side effects are reasonable compared to the benefits the drug offers. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. And when you have been seriously injured by a drug, because it was defective, improperly prescribed, or poorly handled, you need the support of a law firm that you can trust.
If you have been injured by a dangerous or defective drug in Pennsylvania or New Jersey, please contact the experienced attorneys at Wapner Newman today at (215) 569-0900 to schedule your free initial consultation. Our firm has offices in Philadelphia, West Conshohocken, Allentown, and Marlton.