A Washoe District judge ordered pharmaceutical giant Wyeth to post a $58 million bond and pay $1.6 million in attorney fees in a landmark case against the drug company.

According to court documents, Washoe District Judge Robert Perry ordered Wyeth to pay more than $1.6 million in fees to the lawyers who represented Arlene Rowatt, 67, of Incline Village; Pamela Forrester, 65, of Yerington, Nev.; and Jeraldine Scofield, 74, of Fallon, Nev., at trial last September. The judge said the company’s refusal to accept the plaintiffs’ offer of a $499,000 settlement each amounted to “bad faith.”

Judge Perry also ordered Wyeth to post a bond in the amount of the $58 million dollar verdict — the largest single injury verdict in state history — while the company pursues its appeal to the Nevada Supreme Court. Wyeth had sought a waiver of the bond requirement, contending its size made the bond unnecessary.

“The court finds that although Wyeth’s refusal of the plaintiff’s Offer of Judgment may not have been grossly unreasonable, it was in bad faith,” Perry wrote, “Although Wyeth had prevailed in some similar cases brought in other areas of the country, it had also settled several cases, and even lost cases in which the jury verdict exceeded $1 million. Because Wyeth responded to the Plaintiffs with offers of zero, it is apparent to the court that Wyeth decided to gamble that the jury would return a defense verdict.”

Geoffrey White, a partner in White Meany & Wetherall, LLP, which represented the women, called the decision positive.

“Posting bond helps prevent corporate shenanigans after the supreme court appeal process,” he said.

All three women began taking the Wyeth drug Premarin (estrogen), as well as a related drug Progestin, more than 10 years ago. They later switched to Prempro, a Wyeth product that combined Premarin and Progesterone in the same pill. They stopped taking the drugs once their breast cancers were diagnosed. Scofield and Rowatt both required mastectomies to remove their breasts.

“I think we’re making headway,” Rowatt said. “Most of the things so far have been positive.”

Wyeth did not respond to requests for comment.

In the original award for the Plaintiffs Judge Perry asserted that “there was substantial evidence from which the jury could conclude that Wyeth knew that its product could cause breast cancer, that it intentionally failed to conduct adequate tests, that it financed and manipulated scientific studies and sponsored articles in professional and scientific journals that deliberately minimized the risk of cancer while over-promoting certain benefits and citing others which it knew to be unsubstantiated.” Perry added: “The evidence (at trial) also supported the conclusion that Wyeth intentionally made similar misstatements and misleading assertions in its marketing to physicians and its advertising directed to the public.”
Wyeth faces about 5,300 similar lawsuits across the country in state and federal courts involving the drugs Premarin, an estrogen replacement, and Prempro, a combination of estrogen and Progestin.