Family Wins $5 Million Verdict against Infants’ Tylenol

By Nathan Abbott

Published on August 08, 2006

A wrongful death action filed against McNeil Consumer & Specialty Pharmaceuticals, the maker of Infants’ Tylenol, resulted last month in a Philadelphia jury awarding $5 million in damages. The plaintiffs’ one-year old son died in 2002 after being accidentally administered a fatal dose of the product, which lawyers for the family claimed was not properly labeled.

A. Roy Decaro, one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs, said he was not arguing that Tylenol was a bad product, only that it should be labeled properly. Infants’ Tylenol is concentrated -- it is three times stronger than Children’s Tylenol -- so that it may be administered more easily. The family was not aware of this, and claimed that the bottle does not warn of this fact.

Attorneys representing McNeil argued that the liver damage that resulted in the infant's death was not caused by Tylenol, but by an unrelated virus. The jury disagreed, and returned the verdict in favor of the family in less than two hours.

McNeill said it plans to appeal the verdict.

The family was not available for comment, but their attorney once again called for stronger warnings on the bottle that inform consumers that the product is concentrated.

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