The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld the dismissal of about 200 lawsuits related to the Gardasil vaccine, ruling that plaintiffs failed to meet the filing deadline required under the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP).
In an opinion written by Chief Judge Albert Diaz, the court said the claims should have first been brought through the VICP, a federal program created to handle vaccine injury cases outside the regular court system. Under that system, people who believe they were injured by covered vaccines generally must file their claims in the VICP before they can pursue any other legal action.
That system has its own deadlines. In most cases, claims must be filed within a few years of when symptoms first appear. The court’s ruling treated those timing rules as part of the VICP process that must be handled there—not in separate lawsuits filed in regular federal court.
The lawsuits at issue were part of a larger group of cases consolidated in federal court in North Carolina. A federal judge previously dismissed them, finding that the Vaccine Act requires claims like these to go through the VICP first. The Fourth Circuit agreed and left that dismissal in place.
Wisner Baum LLP represented the plaintiffs in the litigation, according to court filings.
Separately, NPR has reported that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. previously held a financial interest tied to potential legal fees from clients referred to the firm before transferring that interest to his son during the confirmation process. NPR also reported that one attorney at the firm was involved in multiple HPV vaccine cases filed in the VICP.
According to the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), the VICP has paid out more than $5.4 billion in compensation since it was created in 1988. The program is funded by a small tax added to each vaccine dose.
Congress created the system in 1986 after concerns that lawsuits were making it harder for vaccine manufacturers to stay in the market, especially for the pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine.
The ruling reinforces how the system is designed to work: vaccine injury claims covered by the program must go through the VICP first, rather than starting in regular civil court.
