Fixodent Lawsuit Has No Teeth: Eleventh Circuit Court Affirms Dismissal On Daubert Grounds

On a roll recently, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit filed against Proctor and Gamble brought by a woman claiming that she suffered from a neurological condition caused by Fixodent, a denture adhesive. The lawsuit was dismissed on the ground that Plaintiff could not prove causation because her experts were not reliable under Daubert

One of the main components of Fixodent is zinc.  Plaintiff alleged that the zinc blocked her body’s ability to use copper, leading to a neurological condition known as copper-deficiency myelopathy.  According to Plaintiff, she started to develop symptoms after using up to four tubes of Fixodent per week for eight years.

Plaintiff sought to prove causation primarily through four expert witnesses (all physicians), who would have testified generally whether Fixodent could cause copper-deficiency myelopathy. However, the trial court refused to allow such testimony, finding that Plaintiff’s experts did not use reliable methodologies because they failed to show any scientific evidence as to how much Fixodent must be used, and for how long it must be used, to cause a purported copper deficiency.  Moreover, the experts in question failed to show how long that copper deficiency condition must last in order to place someone at risk for developing copper-deficiency myelopathy.

The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the district court’s decision to dismiss the case at the summary judgment stage.

The case is Chapman v. Procter & Gamble Distributing, LLC, — F.3d —- (11th Cir. September 11, 2014).

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