Risperdal Plaintiffs Allowed To Claim Punitive Damages

Risperdal Plaintiffs Allowed To Claim Punitive Damages

Introduction

Defendants named in the Risperdal gynecomastia litigation, Johnson & Johnson, and its Janssen Pharmaceuticals subsidiary, will now have to compensate thousands of Risperdal gynecomastia plaintiffs after a Pennsylvania court ruling by a three-judge panel (Superior Court Judges Jack A. Panella, Alice Beck Dubow and Kate Ford Elliott) ruled that plaintiffs may ask courts to apply the laws of their home states instead of the state in which the case is being tried or the defendant’s home state as they overruled a 2015 ruling in which, though the plaintiff was awarded compensatory damages, he was barred from receiving punitive damages as the judge had applied the New Jersey Law. This ruling may set the path for several other like cases where the New Jersey Law applied did not permit plaintiffs to pursue punitive damages in product liability cases that involve medications approved by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration.