Paragard IUD Lawsuit: Where MDL Cases Stand (2026)

A scheduling order set Robere v. Teva to start September 28, 2026, with pretrial deadlines through the summer. Plaintiffs agreed to the dates but kept their position that the trial should wait for the Eleventh Circuit to act on Teva's appeal request.

In the second bellwether case, Judge May granted Teva summary judgment in part. She dismissed the implied warranty and gross negligence claims, plus express warranty claims except one based on the allegedly deficient warnings. All other claims survived.

Judge May set a new selection process. Each side picks 4 Teva-era and 4 Cooper-era cases, and each side gets vetoes. Florida-law cases and plaintiffs without a complete fact sheet are excluded. The court will pick 4 cases and set their trial order.

At the plaintiffs' request, Judge May struck a second errata sheet submitted for Dr. Joseph DeVito, Teva's corporate witness on Paragard's materials and design. The changes he made to his testimony after the deposition will not count.

Judge May formally certified her preemption ruling for immediate appeal. The question: can an internal analysis of existing data qualify as "newly acquired," which would let a drugmaker change its label without FDA approval, when the manufacturer's own delay kept that analysis from happening in time?

Judge May conditionally granted Teva's renewed motion to send the preemption question to the Eleventh Circuit. She stayed the third trial, Braxton, kept Robere on the September calendar, and gave the parties 30 days to propose the next group of bellwether cases.

Judge May dismissed with prejudice the cases of plaintiffs who did not respond to a February show-cause order on missing Plaintiff Fact Sheets. Plaintiffs who had fixed their paperwork kept their cases.

At a post-verdict status conference, Judge May said the Robere trial would move to fall 2026. Teva got 14 days to renew its early-appeal request in Robere and Braxton, and the parties were told to discuss more bellwether trials.

The Atlanta jury returned a verdict for Teva in Rickard v. Teva after about two weeks of trial, and the court entered judgment for the defendants the next day. The result does not bind other Paragard plaintiffs, but it affects how both sides value the remaining cases.

Mid-trial, Teva filed a Rule 50 motion asking the judge to rule in its favor without sending the case to the jury. The motion became moot after the verdict.

Jury trial began in Rickard v. Teva Pharmaceuticals USA in federal court in Atlanta. It was the first Paragard case from the MDL to reach a jury, testing the claim that the IUD can break during removal.

Judge May denied Teva's request to certify the preemption ruling for immediate appeal. She said pausing now would only cause delay, kept Rickard v. Teva on schedule, and noted either side could appeal after trial.

In the first bellwether case, Judge May granted Teva summary judgment in part. She dismissed fraud claims based on statements made directly to the plaintiff, breach-of-warranty claims, and a standalone gross negligence claim. The remaining claims went to trial, and punitive damages stayed on the table.

Judge May granted Cooper summary judgment on failure-to-warn claims, finding no evidence that different Cooper warnings would have prevented the plaintiffs' injuries. With no claims left against it, Cooper was removed from all three bellwether cases, leaving Teva as the defendant.

Ruling on Teva's federal preemption motion, Judge May let the bellwether failure-to-warn claims proceed, along with design claims tied to using Dupont 20 plastic and up to 24% barium sulfate. Other design claims, such as reshaping the T, were preempted because they would have needed prior FDA approval.

Judge May granted Cooper summary judgment on design defect claims brought by Rickard, Braxton, and Robere. She held off on the failure-to-warn claims against Cooper and ordered more briefing on whether plaintiffs could prove causation.

Judge May heard oral argument on the defendants' summary judgment motions in the three bellwether cases and took them under advisement.

Based on the parties' agreement, Judge May fixed the bellwether trial sequence: Pauline Rickard first, Alisa Robere second, and Melody Braxton third.

The eighth amended scheduling order left all three bellwether trial dates unchanged (Jan. 20, Mar. 3, and May 11, 2026). It also set expert-challenge and motion deadlines for each trial case.

After a private review, Judge May found that the remaining documents tied to the 2023 IPS audit and Privilege Log #9 were properly withheld as privileged or irrelevant. Documents the defendants had already agreed to produce were not affected.

Judge May allowed plaintiffs to re-depose William Senatore about a 2023 IPS audit. She found the defendants had not supported the privilege objections they used to block those questions.

The fifth amended scheduling order pushed the first bellwether trial from January 12 to January 20, 2026. Trials two and three kept their March 3 and May 11 dates.

After reviewing both sides' position papers, Judge May chose the Braxton case, the defendants' pick, to complete the bellwether trial group.

Judge May gave the defendants 14 days to produce a full copy of any audit or mock FDA inspection of the Paragard plant and systems, and the full 2024 FDA Establishment Inspection Report issued to Cooper.

In a joint stipulation, plaintiffs and the Teva and Cooper defendants agreed to finish mediation by November 1, 2025. They also agreed to meet at least monthly until trial to explore a resolution, with court-appointed mediator Gino Brogdon helping as needed.

Judge May ruled on the defendants' statute of limitations motion. She dismissed with prejudice a group of cases barred by Michigan and Virginia filing deadlines or Tennessee and Texas statutes of repose. For a few plaintiffs, she converted the motion to summary judgment for a closer look at the facts.

A fourth amended scheduling order set the first bellwether trial for January 12, 2026, the second for March 3, 2026, and the third for May 11, 2026.

Judge May ruled on a show-cause order aimed at plaintiffs who had not met Plaintiff Fact Sheet rules. Most had fixed the problem or had cases closed another way. Plaintiffs who never responded saw their cases dismissed with prejudice.

At the monthly status conference, Judge May said she would set the first bellwether trial for December 1, 2025 and the second for February 2, 2026, subject to the availability of defense trial counsel.

Siding with the plaintiffs, Judge May ordered the defendants to produce the files of 31 newly identified employees quickly and at their own cost. The defendants first listed 51 relevant employees in November 2022.

The court refused to let plaintiffs bring in Teva's Israel-based parent, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., as a defendant in the master complaint. The Teva U.S. companies already named remain defendants.

Under a choice-of-law order, transferred cases follow the choice-of-law rules of the state where they were first filed. Direct-filed cases follow the rules of the state named in the plaintiff's short-form complaint. This matters because filing deadlines and legal standards vary by state.

Judge May restructured the plaintiffs' leadership committee. She removed eight Steering Committee members, moved C. Andy Childers to the Executive Committee (he stays liaison counsel), moved Timothy Clark to the Steering Committee, and added Kristen Hermiz, Danae Benton, and Hannah Pfeifler.

Judge May entered a case management order and second amended scheduling order, resetting the MDL's pretrial deadlines for the year ahead.

During a phone conference, Judge May ruled that the bellwether pool would continue with nine cases, removing one plaintiff's case from the group.

The court entered an amended bellwether process order and a separate order for bellwether pool plaintiffs. Together they govern how the test cases move through case-specific discovery.

The court ordered plaintiffs who had not served Plaintiff Fact Sheets to show within 14 days why their cases should not be dismissed with prejudice. Failing to respond could end a plaintiff's case.

Through late March and April, Judge May named a series of replacement bellwether picks. Some chosen plaintiffs were removed, and others would not agree to have their cases tried in Georgia.

Judge May issued an order on the bellwether process, the method for choosing the test cases to be tried first. On February 27, the court randomly drew six cases for the pool. Test-trial verdicts don't bind other plaintiffs, but they show how juries weigh the evidence.

After interviewing candidates put forward by both sides, Judge May picked M. Gino Brogdon, Sr. as the MDL's mediator. A mediator helps the parties discuss settlement, but the appointment alone does not signal that a deal is near.

Judge May entered a case management order on custodial file production. It sets how the defendants must search and turn over the files of employees most likely to hold Paragard records.

The initial scheduling order set October 30, 2023 as the end of discovery and November 14, 2023 as the deadline for motions.

At a discovery hearing, the court said a trial date would be set for January 2024. It was the first time a target date for a Paragard jury trial was named. The date was later pushed back several times.

Judge May entered a case management order on Plaintiff Fact Sheets. Every plaintiff must complete a standard questionnaire and hand over supporting records. The court later used these rules to dismiss cases from plaintiffs who never complied.

Judge May denied the defendants' motion to dismiss the master complaint, including their argument that federal law preempts the warning claims. She pointed to allegations of more than 2,000 breakage reports in the FDA's adverse event database from 2009 to 2020. Discovery could now begin.

A case management order on direct filing lets plaintiffs file straight into the Georgia MDL. They no longer need to sue in their home district first and wait for a transfer.

Judge May named Erin K. Copeland and Timothy Clark to lead the plaintiffs, and Frederick M. Erny and Gina M. Saelinger to lead the defense. Lead counsel run strategy, discovery, and filings for their entire side of the MDL.

The FDA's Office of Prescription Drug Promotion sent CooperSurgical a warning letter about a sponsored TV segment titled "Paragard: Family Planning During The Pandemic." The agency said the video touted Paragard's effectiveness but left out all risk information, making it false or misleading.

A federal panel of judges, the JPML, combined all federal Paragard cases into one MDL in Atlanta under Judge Leigh Martin May (N.D. Ga.), over the defendants' objection. At the time, 55 lawsuits were pending in 31 districts. Each one alleges the IUD tends to break during removal, sometimes requiring surgery to retrieve the broken piece.

The Cooper Companies told the SEC that its CooperSurgical unit closed the Paragard acquisition on November 1, 2017. Devices implanted before this date fall into the Teva era, while later ones fall into the Cooper era.

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries announced a $1.1 billion cash deal to sell Paragard, including the Buffalo, New York plant that makes it, to CooperSurgical. The sale later shaped the litigation, because Paragard claims are now split by which company owned the device when it was implanted.