Is There a Recall on Refresh Eye Drops?

In January 2023, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), along with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), strongly urged consumers to stop using the eye drop products called EzriCare Artificial Tears and Delsam Pharma’s Artificial Tears. About one month after the CDC and FDA recommendations, manufacturer Global Pharma voluntarily recalled both products. Infections produced by the strain of bacteria found in both eye drops have caused at least three fatalities, as well as vision loss suffered by at least eight other victims. The FDA also has issued a warning to consumers not to use a Global Pharma eye ointment due to possible contamination.

Is there a recall on Refresh eye drops? The answer is no, although manufacturer Allergan plc has voluntarily recalled four of its products in the past, including a 2020 recall to address a lack of consumer information on its product labels.

To file a successful civil lawsuit that seeks monetary damages, your product liability lawyer must prove the presence of the four elements of negligence.

Duty of Care

Duty of care means one party is responsible for protecting the health of a second party. For example, a surgeon has a duty of care to perform surgery on a patient that does not harm the patient in any way. Product manufacturers, such as the manufacturer of the recalled eye drops, owe consumers a duty of care to prevent customers from sustaining injuries and/or developing illnesses as a result of using one of their products. 

Violating the Duty of Care Doctrine

The second element of negligence that your product liability lawyer from Morgan and Morgan must prove concerns demonstrating the eye drop manufacturer violated the duty of care doctrine. By recalling the two eye drop products, manufacturer Global Pharma admitted the company had violated its duty to care for consumers. However, your attorney must still show a link between a client’s eye injury and the use of one of the recalled eye drops.

Eye Drops Caused Your Eye Injuries

Here is where proving negligence gets a bit tricky. Although you have sustained one or more eye injuries, the injuries might not have resulted from using either of the two recalled products. The team of attorneys representing Global Pharma might claim you sustained your eye injury because of another reason. The legal team providing support for Global Pharma might claim that you failed to follow directions or that you sustained your eye injury as the result of another incident.

Copies of medical records should help your product liability lawyer from Morgan and Morgan to prove the presence of the third element of negligence.

You Suffered Financial Losses

After clearing the most challenging hurdle, proving the presence of the fourth element of negligence for an eye drop lawsuit is not as difficult to do. Your product liability attorney must show the judge hearing your case that your injury or injuries have caused financial losses. Copies of medical bills, as well as bank statements, should be more than enough evidence to prove Global Pharma caused financial losses.

Product liability cases represent a type of personal injury law, which means you must file a civil lawsuit by the deadline established by your state for personal injury cases. Most states have set a deadline for filing a civil lawsuit that seeks monetary damages between two and four years. Nonetheless, you might live in a state that has established a filing deadline as long as six years or as short as one year. For most product liability cases, the clock starts to tick for taking legal action on the date when the plaintiff sustained one or more injuries. 

However, that might be the case for you since the recalled eye drops do not immediately cause harm. The bacteria damaging one or both eyes does not immediately cause damage, which means you might receive an extension due to the development of delayed symptoms. Regardless of when the court starts the clock ticking on the deadline for your case, you should act with a sense of urgency to recover from the financial losses produced by the defective eye drops.

If you fail to meet the statute of limitations imposed by your state for filing a personal injury lawsuit, you can expect the court clerk to remove your case from the judicial docket.

The most important type of legal support provided by a product liability attorney from Morgan and Morgan is to get you the compensation that you deserve for sustaining a serious eye injury as the result of using either of the two recalled eye drops. Judges have the legal power to award several types of compensation, with the following three types of monetary damages representing the most common types of compensation.

Economic Damages

The awarding of economic damages covers the tangible costs associated with your case. For a product liability case, medical expenses represent by far the costliest type of expense for plaintiffs. You have the right to request compensation to cover the costs associated with diagnostic tests, treatment programs, and physical therapy sessions. If you lost your eyesight or suffer from diminished eyesight, you have the right to ask for compensation that pays for prescription medications, the use of an assistive device, or training on how to read braille.

Non-Economic Damages

Unlike economic damages, non-economic damages do not come with a price tag. Instead, non-economic damages cover the costs associated with pain and suffering, such as developing the debilitating emotional distress symptoms associated with conditions like depression and acute anxiety. Fully or partially losing your eyesight because of using a defective brand of eye drops can trigger a wide variety of negative emotions. Your product liability attorney from Morgan and Morgan calculates a reasonable value for non-economic damages by using a formula that factors in the value of economic damages.

Punitive Damages

Global Pharma might be on the financial hook for a substantial value of punitive damages for committing one or more acts of negligence. Judges and juries award punitive damages for two reasons. First, punitive damages punish the defendant for causing you harm. Second, punitive damages are awarded to deter the defendant from committing future acts of negligence. If the judge or jury hearing your case discovers that Global Pharma committed at least one act of intentional negligence, you might receive a value for punitive damages that exceeds the combined value of economic and non-economic damages.

If you lost a loved one who died as the result of using one of the two recalled eye drops manufactured by Global Pharma, your attorney also can request compensation for wrongful death damages.

As we already mentioned, negotiating a settlement allows you to avoid a costly and time-consuming trial. Negotiations can unfold at any point during the litigation process, but they typically take place during the discovery phase. Discovery is the point during the litigation process in which both parties exchange physical evidence and the statements given by expert witnesses.

Negotiations start when your product liability lawyer from Morgan and Morgan submits an initial offer. The defendant can either accept the initial offer or reject it. If the defendant rejects the initial offer, you might receive a counteroffer or a formal letter stating the defendant’s intention to move forward in the litigation process. Several rounds of counteroffers can follow the initial offer until both sides reach an agreement or decide to take the case to the trial phase of the litigation process.

Is there a recall on Refresh eye drops? Not right now, but if you experience any side effects, don’t hesitate to speak with a doctor and then speak with Morgan and Morgan.

We encourage you to read the reviews left by our clients on sites such as Yelp and Google to gain insight into how our product liability lawyers operate. You should notice several common themes, such as the transparent way our attorneys communicate with clients.

Schedule a free case evaluation today with Morgan and Morgan to learn more about recovering the financial losses caused by either of the two recalled eye drops manufactured by Global Pharma.