Thousands of lawsuits over baby formula should stay where filed, court says

By Diana Novak Jones

CHICAGO, June 4 (Reuters) - An Illinois appeals court said on Tuesday that thousands of lawsuits claiming baby formula made by Abbott Laboratories and a Reckitt Benckiser subsidiary causes a dangerous disease in preterm infants should stay in the court where they were filed, a venue considered plaintiff friendly.

The Appellate Court of Illinois’ 5th District upheld a lower court’s ruling rejecting Abbott and Mead Johnson’s motions to transfer the lawsuits out of Madison County, Illinois. The decision allows the claims to move forward in what is often viewed as a plaintiff-friendly county court. Madison County is often flagged by tort reform groups as a jurisdiction known for outsize jury verdicts against corporate defendants.

The appellate court, however, reversed the lower court’s ruling denying the companies' separate motion to transfer or dismiss the lawsuits based on their argument that the cases were filed in an inconvenient location. The appeals court sent that ruling back to the lower court for reconsideration.

A representative for Mead Johnson said in a statement that the company will continue to pursue dismissal of the cases in Madison County, many of which don’t involve Mead Johnson products or injuries that occurred in the county. The representative said that plaintiffs' lawyers were trying to "coerce settlement by building a large inventory of claims, even when plaintiffs' lawyers have no intention of ever trying them,” the company said.

A spokesperson for Abbott Laboratories did not respond to a request for comment.

Tor Hoerman, one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs said in a statement that the ruling "reinforces the importance of corporate accountability and helps ensure that families impacted by these tragic injuries can seek justice in the appropriate forum."

All of the lawsuits allege that the companies failed to warn that their specialized formulas used by newborn intensive care units in hospitals could cause necrotizing enterocolitis, a disease that almost exclusively affects premature infants and has an estimated mortality rate of more than 20%.

The companies have denied the claims, saying that while breast milk protects against NEC, formula does not cause it, and that the benefits of breast milk have long been known to clinicians.

In addition to state court cases in Illinois, Missouri and Pennsylvania, a federal multidistrict litigation with more than 700 cases over the claims is moving forward in Chicago, according to court records.

The same Illinois appeals court is also considering a similar dispute over transferring more cases over the preterm formula that are currently pending in St. Clair County, Illinois, another court targeted by tort reformers for being plaintiff-friendly.

In 2024, a jury in St. Clair County ordered Mead Johnson to pay $60 million to the mother of a premature baby who died after being fed the company's Enfamil baby formula. A few months later, a St. Louis, Missouri, jury ordered Abbott to pay $495 million in damages in another case.

Both companies prevailed in the most recent trial, in October. However, the judge in that case in March ordered a new trial, finding that lawyers for the defendants had acted improperly.

The case is Jupiter v. Mead Johnson and Co LLC, Appellate Court of Illinois, Fifth District, No. 230248.

For the plaintiffs: Ashley Keller and Benjamin Whiting of Keller Postman; Tor Hoerman of TorHoerman Law; and David Cates of Cates Law Firm

For Abbott Laboratories: Linda Coberly and Stephen D’Amore of Winston & Strawn; Thomas Kilbride and Adam Vaught of Kilbride & Vaught; and W. Jason Rankin and Emilee Bramstedt of HeplerBroom

For Mead Johnson: Joel Bertocchi of Akerman; Anthony Anscombe and Darlene Alt of Steptoe & Johnson; and Donald Flack of Bartholomew, Shevlin & Flack