Chicago Tribune (CT) - TUESDAY, October 3, 1995 Edition: NORTH SPORTS FINAL Section: NEWS Page: 3 Word Count: 468
Jan Crawford Greenburg, Washington Bureau.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in Chicago ruled in March that the hemophiliacs could not bring their claims in one trial, partly because it might force the four companies into bankruptcy.

"The U.S. Supreme Court takes very, very few cases, so we're not shocked or surprised by this," said Chicago attorney Debra Thomas, who is representing clients suing the companies. "We will see a lot more cases filed because of this."

The case was one of 1,500 that the court declined to hear Monday, the first day of its fall term. Justice John Paul Stevens, the court's senior associate justice, presided because Chief Justice William Rehnquist is home recovering from back surgery.

The court also declined to review a federal appeals court decision upholding a federal law that prohibits protesters from blocking access to abortion clinics.

And it let stand a New Jersey Supreme Court decision that shopping malls cannot prohibit protesters from passing out political leaflets.

In the hemophiliacs' case, a three-judge panel, in an opinion by Chief Judge Richard Posner, ruled that allowing more than 10,000 hemophiliacs to join in a class action in a Chicago federal court would be similar to blackmail.

That's because, Posner wrote, the companies would be forced to settle to avoid the possibility of a ruling in favor of the hemophiliacs, which would create such "enormous liability exposure" for the companies that they would be forced to settle.

The case was filed in 1993 in Chicago against four drug companies that use plasma to make blood-clotting products.

The hemophiliacs argued that the companies were negligent in making the products because they were aware of the AIDS virus. The companies, which have won 12 of the 13 suits that already have gone to trial, contend they took all possible precautions.

U.S. District Judge John Grady allowed the hemophiliacs to join together in the class action to determine whether the companies were negligent.

Some legal experts had watched the case closely because of its parallels to class-action lawsuits filed against the tobacco industry. Many have said that Posner's reasoning could also apply to that litigation.

In his opinion, Posner wrote that, if the class action against the drug companies were allowed to proceed, one jury would "hold the fate of an industry in the palm of its hand" and could "hurl the industry into bankruptcy."

Grady also is presiding over a separate set of more than 100 cases against the companies, which have been consolidated for pretrial investigation, Thomas said.

Also, several hundred other lawsuits have been filed in state courts, she said.

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