Dalkon Shield Case Prompts $2.4-Billion Damages Claim Against Company’s Leaders
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WASHINGTON — Lawyers representing women injured by the Dalkon Shield on Monday proposed suing the top executives of A.H. Robins Co. for about $2.4 billion to hold them personally accountable for the defective contraceptive.
Chairman E. Claiborne Robins, his son, company President E. Claiborne Robins Jr., and former President William L. Zimmer III should be sued for their “misdeeds” and “grossly negligent actions,” lawyers said in papers filed in U.S. District Court in Richmond.
The District Court must give permission for the lawsuit to be filed on behalf of the thousands of women who suffered injuries, including infertility or death, as a result of using the Robins intrauterine device.
The lawsuit, filed by Murray Drabkin, the lawyer for the Dalkon Shield Claimants Committee, is the first effort to hold A.H. Robins Co. officers and directors financially responsible for the Dalkon Shield and its aftermath, which forced the Richmond company into bankruptcy.
“This motion is nothing more than a continuation of the obstructionist tactics that Mr. Drabkin and the Dalkon Shield Claimants Committee have practiced throughout the Chapter 11 case,” said A.H. Robins Co. spokesman Roscoe E. Puckett Jr.
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