How to Join a Class Action Lawsuit Against Pharmaceutical Companies

You may be wondering how medical class action lawsuits are joined. You can either initiate a class action lawsuit yourself on behalf of a class of consumers, or you can be involved as a class member yourself.

At the beginning of class action lawsuits against drug manufacturers, only a few consumers will be involved. Typically, an individual or a few people will find a class action lawsuit lawyer, file a class action prescription drug lawsuit, then serve as named or lead plaintiffs in the dangerous drug case. What lead plaintiffs do is they essentially file class action lawsuits on behalf of a class of consumers who are affected by the allegations. The lead plaintiffs publicly represent that class’ interests going forward.

For those who just wish to be a class member in a class action involving defective drugs, it’s only when a settlement occurs that they have to act. Once cases involving dangerous drugs settle, class members usually need to fill out claims and file them online or through the mail by a deadline in order to receive their share of the settlement.

It’s important to note that if you have been injured by a dangerous drug or medical device, you may be able to recover far more compensation by filing an individual lawsuit than by filing a class action or joining a class action.

Call us today for a free consultation if you or a loved one has been injured by a defective drug. We can let you know if you qualify to file a class action lawsuit or join a class action, or if you would be better off filing an individual lawsuit seeking compensation for your injuries. We can also help you file a class action, join one, or file an individual lawsuit. Call us today for a free case evaluation.

Can I Sue a Pharmaceutical Company?

Pharmaceutical products like prescription drugs should heal people. They should make people feel better rather than worse. However, when the pharmaceutical industry releases unsafe medications, serious injuries can result. Dangerous side effects can even lead to death.

Can you sue pharmaceutical companies for injuries and side effects? With the help of our experienced dangerous drug lawyers, the answer to this question is “yes.”

Has a prescription medication or over-the-counter medication injured you? Nadrich Accident Injury Lawyers can help you. We have tremendous experience in holding drug companies accountable for injuries. We fight tenaciously to recover our clients the compensation they deserve, including compensation for:

• Medical bills
• Lost wages
• Loss of earning capacity
• Pain and suffering
• Wrongful death

You only have limited time to take action. Your chances of preserving all evidence recovering full compensation are better if you act sooner.

It’s easy to sue. Our lawyers are here to help. Call us today for a free consultation. We are eager to pursue your claim against a drug manufacturer with the effort and professionalism it deserves.

How to Initiate a Pharmaceutical Class Action Lawsuit

There is a specific process for initiating a class action lawsuit.

In California, your first step will be to file your lawsuit in the proper court and make a move to obtain “class action certification.” In order to receive this certification, your lawsuit must meet five criteria:

• Numerosity: The size of the class must be large enough to make an ordinary lawsuit impracticable.
• Commonality: All class members must share major common factual and legal questions.
• Typicality: The main class representatives’ claims need to be typical as well as aligned with that of the class.
• Adequacy: The class interests must be adequately and fairly protected by the class representatives. The class representatives can’t have conflicting motivations or interests when compared with other members.
• Superiority: The class action needs to provide substantial benefits to courts and litigants. The class action needs to be superior at resolving an issue when compared to other methods.

Courts do not consider cases’ underlying merits when determining whether to certify proposed class action lawsuits. Courts only consider if the lawsuits meet certification requirements when deciding to certify the lawsuits or not.

However, most of the time, you don’t have to go through this process to join a class action. Once a class action is initiated, you can simply join as a class member.

How Much Does It Cost to Join a Class Action Lawsuit Against Pharmaceutical Companies?

It doesn’t cost any money to join a class action lawsuit against manufacturers of medications or medical devices.

Call us today for a free consultation and we will take care of things for no upfront cost. We can help you join a class action or, if you can recover more compensation by doing so, file an individual lawsuit on your behalf instead.

What Happens After I Join a Pharmaceutical Class Action Lawsuit?

Once you join a class action lawsuit, you will usually wait for your case to get resolved via trial or settlement. Once the case is successful, you will end up receiving part of a the settlement which is based upon your eligibility. No further action will be required from you unless you are notified that you need to file a claim in order to receive your portion of the settlement. The distribution of funds will be overseen by the court, who will ensure fairness to all members of the class.

One danger to joining a class action lawsuit is that if you join one, you will lose your legal right to end up filing an individual lawsuit. An individual lawsuit may allow you to recover far more compensation than a class action. You might join a class action, receive a payout, then find out later that an individual lawsuit would have been able to recover you far more money. At this point you no longer have the legal right to file said individual lawsuit. This situation will be made even worse if the class action fails and you receive no money at all.

Call us today for a free consultation if you are unsure if you should file or join a class action lawsuit, or if you should file an individual lawsuit. We can go over the individual circumstances of your case with you and help you make the decision which will benefit you the most.

What Drugs Have Class Action Lawsuits?

When dangerous drugs like Depo-Provera, Ozempic or Oxbryta injure a lot of patients, class action lawsuits may result because of how many people get injured.

Notable pharmaceutical class action lawsuits in recent years have involved:

Types of Pharmaceutical Class Action Lawsuits

When class action lawsuits are filed against drug manufacturers, legal teams typically use tactics which are similar to the tactics used in other lawsuits against drug manufacturers. You and your lawyer will have to demonstrate a medication had at least one of these defects:

Harmful Side Effects

A drug which causes harmful side effects even when it is manufactured and used properly is defective by design. It contains what is known as a design defect. Because of this, the drug is considered defective and dangerous. For cases involving design defects, attorneys will make the argument that the drug manufacturer knew or should have known that the side effects existed based upon testing.

Lack of Proper Safety Warnings

When drugs lack proper safety warnings, failure to warn claims can be filed. These are also known as marketing defect claims. These claims can involve flaws in marketing tactics or practices, inadequate safety warnings, or insufficient instructions on drug labels.

As an example, prescription medications may be marketed to treat conditions they aren’t tested for. Sometimes, aggressive or reckless marketing like this can lead to severe health consequences. Sometimes drug manufacturers don’t provide consumers with adequate information to weigh drugs’ benefits against their side effects.

Manufacturing Defects

Manufacturing defect claims involve mistakes being made during the manufacturing process. The drug’s marketing is fair and its design is effective, but a problem occurs while the drug is being made, such as the ingredients being tainted. Different parts of the components of a drug might be mixed unexpectedly, leading to the drug not performing as it is intended to.

Average Pharmaceutical Lawsuit Settlement

If you are wondering how much money you may qualify for in a pharmaceutical lawsuit, there is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question.

The amount of money you may qualify for in a settlement will depend on the specific damages you have incurred.

Damages which we can help you recover financial compensation for in a pharmaceutical lawsuit include:

Medical Bills

Your pharmaceutical drug injuries may have already caused you to incur medical bills. In addition, your drug injury may have left you with a condition which requires future treatment, leading to more bills. We can help you recover compensation for all past and future medical bills related to your drug injury.

Lost Wages

Your drug injury may have caused you to be too sick to work. It may have caused you to have to miss work in order to receive treatment. We can help you recover compensation for any wages you’re unable to earn due to a drug injury.

Loss of Earning Capacity

Your drug injury may have caused you to suffer a permanent disability representing a loss or reduction of earning capacity which we can help you recover compensation for.

Pain and Suffering

Your drug injury is likely to have caused you physical pain and mental suffering. We have spent over 30 years helping drug injury victims calculate the value of their pain and suffering, making sure they’re fairly compensated for it.

Wrongful Death

Unfortunately, sometimes the side effects of medications can lead to death. We help the families of victims of pharmaceutical drugs recover financial compensation that makes sure they don’t have to go through financial hardship due to the losses of their loved ones. This includes compensation for things like funeral costs, burial costs, grieving, suffering, their loved ones’ pain, suffering and medical bills, and the loss of their loved ones’ income, household services, spousal benefits, love and companionship.

Examples of Successful Pharmaceutical Drug Injury Lawsuits

American Home Products – $3.75 Billion

American Home Products, in 1999, agreed to pay up to $3.75 billion after a class action lawsuit was filed on behalf of those who took Pondim or Redux. The combination of these two drugs is known as fen-phen. The drugs were withdrawn from the United States market in 1997 after it was found by physicians that those who took fen-phen had abnormalities in heart valves.

GSK: $2.3 Billion

In October 2024, GSK agreed to pay out $2.3 billion in order to end lawsuits which alleged that Zantac caused cancer. These lawsuits included multiple class action lawsuits.

Statute of Limitations for Class Action Pharmaceutical Lawsuits

A statute of limitations is a time limit. Lawsuits must be filed within this time limit to be valid.

The statute of limitations for product liability lawsuits like pharmaceutical lawsuits will vary from state to state. For example, in California the time limit is two years from the date that the injured party became aware that they were injured and that the injury was caused by a specific medication.

We know all of the applicable time limits in all 50 states. Call us today for a free consultation if you or a loved one has been injured by a medication. We can let you know if you are still eligible to file a class action or individual lawsuit seeking compensation for your injuries.

How Nadrich Accident Injury Lawyers Can Help

If you or a loved one has been injured or killed by a dangerous drug, Nadrich Accident Injury Lawyers can help you recover financial compensation for medical bills, lost wages, loss of earning capacity, pain, suffering, wrongful death and more.

We can help you recover financial compensation by helping you file a class action lawsuit, helping you join a class action lawsuit or filing an individual lawsuit on your behalf.

We can investigate your case, collect evidence for you, build a strong, convincing case for you, and either negotiate with a pharmaceutical company on your behalf or represent you in court in a pharmaceutical lawsuit.

We have been handling pharmaceutical cases since 1990 and have recovered over $750,000,000 for our clients. Our extensive experience in helping victims of dangerous drugs will allow us to recover the most financial compensation possible on your behalf.

If a drug has injured you and you can’t afford treatment for your injuries, we can get you to doctors who will treat you without charging you until your case is over. Our reputation for success when helping victims of dangerous drugs is why doctors do this for our clients.

We will represent you against a pharmaceutical company without charging you until and unless we recover compensation for you. The only fee we will charge is a percentage of any compensation we recover from a pharmaceutical company. No upfront fees or out of pocket fees will be charged for us to handle your dangerous drug case.

Call us today for a free consultation.