Federal Appeals Court Vacates Third Party Payor Class Certification

A federal appeals court last week reversed an order by a district court certifying a class action of insurers, labor unions, and pension funds who alleged that they overpaid for a drug when the manufacturer allegedly didn't reveal all of the drug's adverse side effects. UFCW Local 1776, et al. v. Eli Lilly & Co., No. 09-0222 (2d Cir. 9/10/10).

Plaintiffs acted as third-party payors (TPP) who underwrite the purchase of prescription drugs by their members or insureds; they brought a putative class action against Eli Lilly, manufacturer of the drug Zyprexa, alleging that Lilly had misrepresented Zyprexa’s efficacy and side effects to physicians. The putative class alleged they paid for the many Zyprexa prescriptions. Plaintiffs argued that they were injured in two ways: first, by paying for Zyprexa prescriptions that would not have been issued but for the alleged misrepresentations; and second, by paying a higher price for Zyprexa than would have been charged, absent the alleged misrepresentations.

In a nearly 300-page opinion issued in 2008, Judge Jack Weinstein of the Eastern District of New York granted class certification to the third-party payors. Specifically, the district court certified a class of TPPs on RICO claims predicated on the overpricing theory of damages, but refused to certify a class related to state consumer protection law claims. The lower court concluded that the proposed TPP class presented common questions of law and fact because the “only difference among class third-party payors is how much of the total overcharge each shall receive in damages.” The lower court had addressed whether the losses suffered by the class could be established with sufficient precision, a huge issue in these kinds of cases, concluding that damages could be estimated based on the difference between what was paid for Zyprexa and the actual value of the product. The computation would supposedly require: (i) estimating the total out-of-pocket expenditures for the class members and (ii) using "well-accepted techniques" in applied economics to determine the actual value or appropriate launch price of Zyprexa.

The district court also found that reliance could be proven for the class simply because the alleged fraud was “directed through mailings and otherwise at doctors who relied, causing damages in overpayments by plaintiffs.” This reliance, the district court concluded, could appropriately be shown by generalized proof, but without resort to the “fraud on the market” theory rejected in cases like McLaughlin v. Am. Tobacco Co., 522 F.3d 215 (2d Cir. 2008).

Defendant appealed. The Second Circuit noted that to determine whether the proposed TPP class was properly certified, it had to consider whether substantial elements of the claim against Lilly may be established by generalized, rather than individualized, proof. (Predominance of common or individual issues under Rule 23(b) was the focus.) Even if the issue whether an act of marketing of the drug was in violation of RICO is considered common, Lilly disputed that the other elements required to recover damages – proof of an injury and proof that such injury was by reason of the RICO violation – were common to the proposed class. To show injury by reason of a RICO violation, a plaintiff must demonstrate that the violation caused his injury in two senses. First, he must show that the RICO violation was the proximate cause of his injury, meaning there was a direct relationship between the plaintiff’s injury and the defendant’s injurious conduct. Second, he must show that the RICO violation was the but-for (or transactional) cause of his injury, meaning that but for the RICO violation, he would not have been injured.

Traditionally, to show causation in a fraud context, reliance needed to be shown. But in Bridge v.

Phoenix Bond & Indemnity Co., 128 S. Ct. 2131, 2134 (2008), the Court lessened the emphasis on traditional reliance as an element of the RICO fraud claim to show causation in some cases. But how a plaintiff can or must prove causation is bound up in what the factual claim is. The Bridge Court also said that in “most cases, the plaintiff will not be able to establish even but-for causation if no one relied on the misrepresentation.” 128 S.Ct. at 2144. Here, while reliance may not be an element of the cause of action, there was no question that the plaintiffs alleged, and thus had to prove, third-party reliance as part of their factual chain of causation. Plaintiffs alleged an injury that was caused by physicians relying on Lilly’s supposed misrepresentations and prescribing Zyprexa accordingly. Because reliance was a necessary part of the factual causation theory advanced by the plaintiffs, they had to show it to prevail, and show it by generalized proof if they wished to proceed in a class action.

The court of appeals concluded that plaintiffs’ excess price theory was not susceptible to generalized proof with respect to either but-for or proximate causation, and therefore class certification based on this theory was an abuse of discretion.

The evidence in the record made clear that prescribing doctors do not generally consider the price of a medication when deciding what to prescribe for an individual patient. Any reliance by doctors on alleged misrepresentations as to the efficacy and side effects of a drug, therefore, was not a but-for cause of the price that TPPs ultimately paid for each prescription. Moreover, the TPP plaintiffs, who unlike the doctors were in a position to negotiate the prices of drugs in their formularies, were unable to show proximate causation. The TPP plaintiffs drew an alleged chain of causation in which Lilly distributed misinformation about Zyprexa, physicians relied upon that misinformation and prescribed Zyprexa for their patients, and then the TPPs overpaid. But this narrative skipped several crucial steps: after the doctors prescribe the drug, TPPs relying on the advice of Pharmacy Benefit Managers and their Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committees, placed Zyprexa on their formularies as approved drugs, and then TPPs failed to negotiate the price of Zyprexa below the level set by Lilly. Thus, in this case, the conduct directly causing the harm was distinct from the conduct giving rise to the fraud. The plaintiff TPPs could not and did not allege that they themselves relied on Lilly’s alleged misrepresentations. But because only the TPPs were in a position to negotiate the price paid for Zyprexa, the only factual reliance that might show proximate causation with respect to price was reliance by the TPPs, not reliance by the doctors.

Since plaintiffs could not show the entire factual causal chain by generalized proof, individual issues would abound, and class certification was improper. The court of appeals also remanded for reconsideration of defendant's summary judgment motion in light of its ruling.