22-year old Southern California man wins $48 million verdict against manufacturers of Motrin
A jury has awarded $48 million to a man who got a severe skin disorder and mouth blood blisters after taking the pain reliever Motrin.
Christopher Trejo, a 22-year-old Southern California man, won a negligence lawsuit filed against Johnson & Johnson, the manufacturers of pain reliever Motrin. The suit accused Johnson & Johnson of failing to warn consumers that Motrin could cause potentially fatal skin reactions. Trejo claimed that when he was 16 he took Motrin to quell aches and reduce a fever. He says the over-the-counter painkiller caused his skin to become covered with lesions and blood blisters to form in his mouth.
According to the complaint Trejo and his attorneys filed, the drug manufacturer misrepresented results and did not inform federal drug regulators the entire truth about the risks from Motrin when it asked for approval to sell the product without a prescription. The negligence suit was filed against McNeil Consumer Healthcare, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, and is the second such in recent months: In May, a jury awarded $10 million to the family of a 12-year-old girl who had been blinded in one eye and suffered burns over 84% of her body after taking Children’s Motrin.
In both cases, the jury ruled that Johnson & Johnson was negligent in failing to provide proper label warnings for the consumer.
Contributing writer Emery Brett Ledger is a nationally recognized Personal Injury Attorney.