Walter Melendres and Jeff Martin represented the defendant as local counsel in over 20 separate lawsuits involving over 100 named plaintiffs who allegedly suffered heart valve damage and/or pulmonary hypertension secondary to their ingestion of the prescription diet combination, phen-fen.

In this litigation, the defense often was specific causation, which included investigation of plaintiffs’ experts’ diagnosis of diet-drug induced valvulopathy or an alternative explanation for whatever valvulopathy a small subset of plaintiffs may have exhibited. Accordingly, Messrs. Melendres and Martin deposed more than 100 treating internists, cardiologists, and pulmonologists across the Southwestern United States.

With the defendant’s national defense counsel, Mr. Melendres actively participated in the trial in the First Judicial District, Santa Fe County, New Mexico, which resulted in the first defense verdict for the defendant.

Mr. Melendres also actively participated in the trial in the First Judicial District Court, Rio Arriba County, New Mexico which settled three weeks into the trial.