Washington, DC: A lawsuit seeking class action status was filed on July 8 in federal court in Chicago, against Johnson & Johnson, the largest health-products compnay in the world, alleging fraud and racketeering and demanding compensation for recalled children's allergy and cold medicines.
J&J's McNeil Consumer Healthcare and McNeil-PPC had offered consumers coupons for refunds of the recalled products, which consumers have rejected. According to a report on Bloomberg's Businessweek, the complaint states the coupons are worthless because McNeil has stopped making the medicines and "wrongly assumes that all consumers will want to purchase the company's children's products at some uncertain future date."
On April 30, the companies announced a recall of over 40 different types of pediatric pain and allergy medications, including liquid Tylenol, Motrin and Benadryl, because the quality and potency of the drugs didn't meet corporate requirements. That recall was subsequently expanded in June to include drugs it had "inadvertently omitted," and again in July after the companies said they had identified additional medicines that may have been affected.
The suits seek to proceed on behalf of plaintiffs' groups for residents of Illinois, Texas and Florida, as well as consumers in the U.S. and Canada, who have bought the drugs since December 2008.
