HARRISBURG – A panel of judges from the Superior Court of Pennsylvania recently quashed an appeal from Rex Medical, L.P., in response to a Philadelphia trial court decision that the vena cava filter manufacturer must provide certain pieces of financial information pertinent to plaintiffs’ claims for punitive damages.
Superior Court judges Victor P. Stabile, Alice Beck Dubow and Daniel D. McCaffery ruled on Feb. 9 to uphold a decision made by the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas, in an ongoing mass tort involving Rex Medical, over injuries and damages reported by patients implanted with their vena cava filter devices.
Vena cava filters are metal instruments inserted into the inferior vena cava through the jugular vein. The umbrella-like shape of the device allows it to prevent blood clots traveling through the bloodstream before they can reach vital organs, preventing conditions like a pulmonary embolism.
Rex Medical’s Option Vena Cava Filter entered the market in June 2009, after receiving clearance from the Food & Drug Administration (FDA). Rex Medical later sold the entire product line to Argon Medical L.P. in 2015 for $160 million.
However, allegations surfaced in recent years that the vena cava filters made and distributed by Rex Medical and other companies had a propensity to fracture or move inside a patient’s body, placing them at risk for serious medical difficulties and death.
The case of one plaintiff, Tracy Reed-Brown, was the first vena cava filter action to go before a jury in Philadelphia in 2019. That October, a jury verdict was rendered in her favor of $33,684,140 – comprised of $3,368,414 to compensate for future medical expenses and for future pain and suffering and $30,315,726 in punitive damages.
On Aug. 1, 2020, the Court-appointed Discovery Master, the Honorable Mark Bernstein (Ret.), permitted plaintiffs to serve no more than ten interrogatories limited to the following topics: 1) Rex Medical’s net worth, 2) Annual financial statements or balance sheets from 2014 – present, 3) The receipt of significant funds since January 2015, including income, capital infusions or proceeds of sales, 4) Profits received by Rex Medical from the sale of the Option product line, and 5) The disposition of the funds from the sale of the Option product line, including bonuses, the name of the person(s) authorizing the distributions, and the process by which the distribution from the proceeds of sale were made.
The trial court overruled Rex Medical’s objections to that order in October 2020, leading the company to appeal the collateral order to the Superior Court.
In the instant matter, McCaffery authored the Court’s opinion.
“To satisfy the collateral order doctrine, the appellant must demonstrate that the order “1) is separable from and collateral to the main cause of action; 2) involves a right too important to be denied review; and 3) presents a question that, if review is postponed until final judgment in the case, the claim will be irreparably lost,” McCaffery said.
“The first prong, separability, occurs when we can address the issue surrounding the disputed order without analyzing the ultimate issue in the underlying case. As for the second prong, importance, ‘it is not sufficient that the issue be important to the particular parties.’ Instead, the issue ‘must involve rights deeply rooted in public policy going beyond the particular litigation at hand.’ We must interpret the collateral order doctrine narrowly, and each of the above prongs must be clearly present for us to deem an order collateral.”
In support of his contention, Rex Medical cited court cases which prevented discovery disclosure of individuals’ personal financial information.
However, McCaffery added that while individuals enjoy certain legal protections from discovery obtainment and disclosure of tax records and other financial information, limited corporate partnerships do not.
“Appellant cites no authority in support of the position implicit, but not outright articulated, in its argument – that for Rule 313 purposes, as a limited partnership, it enjoys the same privacy interest extended to individuals. As the trial court recognizes, some of the discovery information will necessarily reveal some individuals’ names, for example, information concerning ‘bonuses’ and ‘the name of the person(s) authorizing the distributions.’ However, directing appellant, a limited partnership, to disclose this specific information is distinguishable from the facts presented in the cases cited, which directed particular individuals to provide, broadly, years of tax returns and other documents showing their entire ‘financial worth,” McCaffery said.
“Accordingly, we conclude appellant has not established the second prong of the collateral order doctrine – that that the underlying discovery order “involves a right too important to be denied review.” Thus, we are constrained to quash this appeal. We need not review whether the other two prongs of the collateral-order test are met. Appeal quashed.”
Superior Court of Pennsylvania case 2332 EDA 2020
Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas case 170501600
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com