repost of 2018 lawsuit outcome
We are pleased to advise of significant positive developments in the litigation against the ECT device manufacturers.
As a result of the manufacturers’ failure to comply with FDA regulations and failure to advise of known or knowable risks associated with the administration of ECT, liability can now be established to hold the manufacturers accountable for failing to warn of cognitive impairment and brain damage following ECT.
After a year of rigorous litigation in California, multiple motions to dismiss and a lot of support from remarkable experts assembled from across the country, we are pleased to report that ECT Plaintiffs successfully defeated the last available defense motion for summary judgment.
As a result, the most recent litigation was cleared to proceed to trial in the Los Angeles Federal Court.
Defendants last efforts to strike Plaintiffs’ experts on “Daubert” challenges were all denied by the Court, deeming Plaintiffs team of experts notably “reliable and relevant” to provide their compelling testimony of brain damage caused by ECT at trial.
The Court effectively ruled as follows in denying the Defense Summary Judgment:
- A reasonable jury could find that the ECT device manufacturer failed to warn plaintiffs’ treating physicians of brain damage resulting from ECT, leading to the oft-reported and acknowledged symptoms of permanent memory loss and cognitive impairment.
- A reasonable jury could find that the ECT device manufacturer was in violation of the relevant federal regulations.
- A reasonable jury could find that Plaintiffs suffered brain damage as a result of ECT.
- A reasonable jury could find that the ECT device manufacturer caused Plaintiffs’ brain damage through failure to warn their treating physicians of brain injury, or alternatively by failing to investigate and report allegations of brain damage and permanent memory loss to the FDA, so that information would be available to the public.
The duty to “investigate and report” allegations of “serious injury or death” by the manufacturer has resulted in ZERO reported adverse events for over four decades, demonstrating a conscious disregard to comply with reporting obligations.
An assembled cast of accomplished experts in the industry all stepped up to support the ECT Plaintiffs.
Including the single most compelling and critical ECT Psychiatrist in the country, the ex-Director of the FDA; the author of the ECT FDA Citizen Petition; and the preeminent NASA/JPL electrical engineer, Plaintiffs were surrounded by some of the greatest experts anywhere — all testifying on behalf of these Plaintiffs that violations of law occurred and establishing that brain injuries were and are caused by ECT.
Nonetheless, throughout the litigation the defense for the manufacturer continued to shirk its responsibility, refusing to acknowledge the flagrant violations in FDA reporting requirements that were at the root of this litigation.
Despite decades of complaints of cognitive impairment and disability following ECT, the evidence amassed demonstrated ZERO adverse event reporting on the FDA’s MAUDE database by the Defendant as of the date suit was filed.
While the manufacturers have sought to ignore it for decades, brain damage is the reason now being demonstrated as the cause for the cognitive impairment and memory loss that results after the administration of electroconvulsive shock therapy.
All ECT patients are entitled to a warning of that undeniable fact.
If that warning is not supplied and an ECT patient suffers the likely brain damage as a result of ECT, those that have sustained lingering cognitive impairment or disability following ECT are entitled to a remedy from the manufacturers who unlawfully failed to warn.
Following the recent favorable rulings, the trial attorneys were able to conclude the matter with a confidential settlement on behalf of these Plaintiffs.
The discovery obtained from the FDA and the Defendant themselves has now paved the way for help to continue to be provided to all others that have been injured by ECT so that justice can now be achieved for the world of ECT shock survivors.
If you or a loved one are still suffering from lingering side effects of ECT treatment performed within the last few years, (or were misled/advised that ECT was not the cause of your lingering issues from earlier ECT treatment) our experts have determined that brain damage is the likely cause.”
