NM plaintiff files 'Fen-Phen' mass tort claim in Phila.

A New Mexico woman has filed a claim in the Fen-Phen mass tort litigation in

Philadelphia over allegations that she developed abnormally high blood pressure as a result of taking the diet drug for about two years.

Lawyers with Philadelphia-based Kline & Specter filed the short-form complaint in the master Fen-Phen litigation at Philadelphia’s Common Pleas Court on Nov. 5 on behalf of Martha Kathleen Schmidt and her husband, Richard Schmidt.

The suit states that Martha Kathleen Schmidt, 52, ingested Fenfluramine for approximately two years back in the 1990s.

In the summer of 2010, the woman was diagnosed with pulmonary arterial hypertension, or abnormally high blood pressure in the arteries of the lungs.

The plaintiff had been prescribed the diet drug by a physician who then practiced in California, and is now based in Montana.

The defendant in the suit is Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, the manufacturer of the drug that is commonly referred to as Fen-Phen.

The complaint contains counts of negligence, strict liability, breach of implied and express warranties and fraud.

There is also a loss of consortium count contained within the suit on behalf of the husband, who asserts that his wife’s ailments have strained their relationship.

The short-form complaint states that the case was originally filed in Philadelphia, but Wyeth subsequently removed the litigation to the U.S. District Court in eastern Pennsylvania.

The federal court, however, remanded the case back to the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas on Oct. 5.

It has now been consolidated in the master Fen-Phen docket in Philadelphia that was created back in 1999.

 

The case ID number is 121100064.