Pfizer Inc. won a key ruling on Thursday that could upend a huge securities fraud case over the company’s marketing of the painkillers Celebrex and Bextra.
In a three-page order, U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain in Manhattan granted a motion by Pfizer to exclude the testimony of Daniel Fischel, the former dean of the University of Chicago Law School and a frequent expert witness in high-profile securities cases. A class of Pfizer shareholders had hoped to use Fischel’s testimony to illustrate that Pfizer caused them billions of dollars’ worth of losses. But Swain ruled that Fischel’s testimony was unreliable because he didn’t properly explain a recent adjustment to his damages calculation.
