CareOne Lidocaine Patches Poor Adhesion, Incomplete Pain Relief Class Action

The subject of this class action is CareOne lidocaine pain-relief patches made by the Stop & Shop Supermarket Company, LLC. The complaint alleges that they do not provide the long relief they advertise because they do not adhere to the body well enough, and that they do not in fact offer the maximum dose of lidocaine available.

Two classes have been proposed for this action:

• The New York Class is all persons in New York who bought the product during the applicable statutes of limitations.
• The Consumer Fraud Multi-State Class is all persons in New Jersey, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island who bought the product during the applicable statutes of limitations.

The complaint defines lidocaine as “a topical anesthetic used to treat pain by blocking the transmission of pain signals from nerve endings to the spinal cord and brain.”

Page 1 of the complaint shows an image of the product, showing an image of a male back with a patch on the lower part of it. Also appearing on it are the words “Maximum Strength,” “Lidocaine Pain Relief Patches,” “Desensitizes Aggravated Nerves,” “Up to 8 Hours Numbing Relief,” along with a seal with the Rx symbol in it and the words, “Our Pharmacists Recommend.”

According to the complaint, at one time the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) wanted to make rules for products that provided lidocaine in the form of patches applied to the skin. However, the complaint alleges that the FDA had difficulties with this because they found that patches did not stick to the body well: “The FDA Adverse Events Reporting System reports that approximately 70% of concerns stemming from lidocaine patches involve their poor adhesion.”

The complaint also refers to a study in the Journal of Pain Research found that around half of such patches that promised performance for eight hours did not stick completely to the body for the whole length of time, even while the people wearing them were sedentary.

The complaint alleges that the CareOne patches “have not undergone the rigorous approval process required by the FDA and use the same outdated and defective adhesion technology as the lidocaine patches studied.”

When consumers are told that the patches provide eight hours of relief, the complaint claims, they expect that the patches will stick to them for at least eight hours and maybe longer, but the CareOne product cannot adhere to the skin for more than four hours, which renders the ‘Up to 8 Hours’ misleading, a significant disparity.”

The “Maximum Strength” claim is also misleading, the complaint claims, because it implies that the patches deliver the maximum dose of lidocaine available in patch form, when the poor adhesion interferes with the delivery and absorption of the lidocaine.

Finally, the complaint alleges that the “Desensitizes Aggravated Nerves” and “Numbing Relief” claims are also misleading because they are “inconsistent with what it is authorized by law to say, i.e., that [they] can be used to ‘temporarily relieve[] minor pain.’”

Article Type: Lawsuit
Topic: Consumer
Tags: Deceptive Advertising, Deceptive Labels, Item Does Not Do What It Is Advertised to Do, Maximum Strength Claims