It is almost time, I think!

The plaintiffs have until September 22, 2008 to file their amended, consolidated complaint in In Re: Vytorin/Zetia Marketing, Sales Practices and Products Liability Litigation (MDL Case No. 1938, original lead case captioned Polk v. Schering-Plough et al., Case No. 08-285). [Earlier this summer, there were preliminary skirmishes over the timing of plaintiffs' allowable early-discovery, in this case.] I still think some refined-version of this Complaint Paragraph 72 will be featured, then and there.

Why is the filing imminent, in my opinion?

Well. . . . just last night, several of the individual lawyers from the plaintiffs’ law-firms filed new appearance forms, presumably to be sure that, collectively, they’ll have the right teams actually on file, and ready to argue, answer, and appear on the inevitable motion snow-storms, once the consolidated amended complaint is filed with Judge Cavanaugh in New Jersey’s federal courts. Look for it soon, perhaps even before the current September 22, 2008 deadline, as these sorts of appearance-form “snow-flurries” often precede a major new filing.

Of course, when it files, I will bring it to you — in nearly real-time, with analysis — and, if appropriate, with some original graphical depictions of what the data holds.

Do stay tuned.

Last month, Judge Cavanaugh encouraged the plaintiffs’ lawyers in the consolidated actions now captioned In Re Vytorin/Zetia Marketing, Sales Practices, and Products Liability Litigation (Civil Action No. 08-285 (DMC); MDL No. 1938, US Dist. Ct. NJ), to meet with the defendants’ lawyers and try to work out some of their differences. One of the more important remaining differences is now scheduled to be the subject of a July 17, 2008 judicially-supervised teleconference. Quoting from the Magistrate’s letter order, just filed July 3, and entered as of July 4, 2008, then:

“. . . .Please be advised that this matter has been scheduled for a telephone conference on Thursday, July 17, 2008 at 10:00 a.m. The parties should be prepared to address the discovery scheduling issue raised in plaintiffs’ letter of June 19, 2008 to District Judge Cavanaugh (docket no. 61). Plaintiffs’ co-liaison counsel are responsible for arranging and initiating the conference call. . . .”

/s/ Mark Falk
United States
Magistrate Judge

The issue to be discussed on this call is whether the plaintiffs will be allowed to begin “discovery” — that is, start reviewing Schering documents (including Schering’s “due diligence” files), and potentially taking depositions — before the court rules on the pending Schering-Plough motion to dismiss these consolidated actions.

It may take several months — into early 2009 — before the court will be fully-briefed on the issues that will drive its decision on the pending motion to dismiss. So, quite sensibly, the plaintiffs do not want this to be a period of “lost time“, in terms of moving the litigation forward, should the judge deny Schering’s motion to dismiss (given the considerable amount of potential evidence of alleged negligence, if not outright malfeasance, and the variety of the plaintiffs’ theories for recovery, I personally doubt that Schering has much of a chance of winning on its motion to dismiss — I’ll explain why some other time).

So — here’s “what’s-up” for July 17: whether the plaintiffs may begin to force Schering to turn over that potential evidence, essentially immediately, perhaps entirely mooting the pending motion to dismiss.

While I think it likely that Magistrate Judge Falk (for District Court Judge Cavanaugh), is likely to allow immediate discovery — it is a certainty that Schering will seek to have the judge — Judge Cavanaugh — reconsider the Magistrate’s decision — in the event that the Magistrate allows immediate discovery. Delay, in these situations, is usually the ally of the defendants — that is, the longer Schering can hold-out, and avoid offering up its internal files for review, the greater the chance that various peoples’ memories will have faded, or clouded-over, and sharp recall of details will have been “lost” — such that no clear trail of wrong-doing (or exoneration!) will appear from any of the documents (and the depositions of witnesses, as they are quizzed about the relevance, meaning and import of the documents).

So — I’ll predict that Magistrate Judge Falk will allow essentially immediate discovery (an important “first-step” toward victory for the plaintiffs); Schering will file a motion for reconsideration — and, if Judge Cavanaugh (after a Schering motion to reconsider) then allows discovery to proceed immediately, Schering’s lawyers will take an immediate appeal of that order “upstairs” — to the Court of Appeals.

However, there are ways in which Judge Cavanaugh’s ultimate order may be crafted to minimize the chance that Schering could acheive additional delay (by filing that appeal). For example, Judge Cavanaugh could enter his order (allowing immediate discovery against Schering) as a “non-final“, or conditional, order — it could be an interim order allowing discovery to proceed, subject to his ruling on the motion to dismiss. That would leave Schering with almost no basis to appeal, as only “final orders” are generally appealable, under the federal rules. If non-final, the order would be non-appealable — but might be vacated, if, at some future point, as briefing on the motion to dismiss evolves, Judge Cavanaugh sees the motion for dismissal as being more meritorious than it now would appear to be.

So — and the reason for all this circumlocution, here — if this July 17 conference call goes well for the plaintiffs, internal Schering documents could begin to emerge as early as late-August, 2008. More likely, it will be late-September 2008, but soon enough, Schering will have to begin to make those diligence files available. And there will very-likely be a treasure trove of evidence there.

Evidence that radiates well-beyond these consumer fraud cases — to the derivative actions, to the ERISA cases, to the RICO actions and, of course, to the securities fraud claims — and, very-little of it likely helpful to Schering’s defenses. Remember, you read it here, first.