The 5th Circ. said that a breast cancer survivor didn’t timely file her lawsuit alleging that Sanofi’s chemotherapy drug Taxotere caused her permanent hair loss, upholding a lower court’s ruling tossing her suit from multidistrict litigation.
The panel said that Antoinette Durden waited more than four years after she started having permanent hair loss to sue in 2016, well beyond Louisiana’s one-year limit for such claims. She finished chemotherapy in early 2012, and the clock started running to file suit six months later in August 2012, when her hair hadn’t grown back.
Like the women in another recent decision involving late claims that Taxotere caused permanent hair loss, Durden never considered Taxotere a cause for her permanent hair loss back in 2012.
Durden’s suit was part of multidistrict litigation alleging that Sanofi failed to provide a warning about possible permanent hair loss.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration first approved Taxotere in 1996, and although the label mentioned hair loss as a possible side effect, it didn’t note permanent hair loss until December 2015. That’s when the label was changed to include a statement that there have been reports of cases of permanent hair loss.
Law360: https://www.law360.com/articles/1392699/5th-circ-won-t-revive-sanofi-chemo-hair-loss-suit