Alex H. MacDonald

Concentration: Alex H. MacDonald focuses his practice on representing plaintiffs in complex personal injury, medical malpractice, civil rights, accountant malpractice, defective medical device, pharmaceutical, and products liability litigation. He has been trial counsel in a number of leading plaintiffs' tort cases, both in Massachusetts and nationally. His cases include the January 28, 2000 then largest wrongful death recovery in Massachusetts's history in the first Fen-Phen diet pill death case filed in the United States. For over fifteen (15) years Mr. MacDonald has been elected by his peers nationally to membership in THE BEST LAWYER IN AMERICA in the three (3) areas of MASS TORTS, PLAINTIFF'S PRODUCT LIABILITY and PLAINTIFF’S PERSONAL INJURY litigation.

Experience: Mr. MacDonald's forty year trial career is punctuated with many noteworthy courtroom outcomes, including a 1989 $4,600,000 (four million six hundred thousand) dollar recovery for a widow and her three children in a malignant hyperthermia medical malpractice death action; a 2003 $80,000,000 (eighty million) dollar accounting malpractice recovery; a 2014 $24,000,000 (twenty-four million) dollar dangerous workplace wrongful death recovery and, since January 2000, over ten (10) stand alone personal injury cases in which sums of $10,000,00 (ten million) dollars or more were paid to Mr. MacDonald's clients. In the same period, Mr. MacDonald obtained recoveries of $1,000,000 (one million) dollars or more in over 90 individual personal injury cases.

Between 2000 to 2017 the aggregate recoveries obtained by Mr. MacDonald in behalf of individual clients or their families against large corporate and/or pharmaceutical company defendants exceeds $350,000,000.

Beginning in December 1996, Mr. MacDonald undertook leadership of a five-member trial team in the nation's first “Fen-Phen” pharmaceutical wrongful death action, Estate of Mary Linnen vs. American Home Products, et.al.(Middlesex Superior Court, Cambridge, MA) which involved the fatal disease Primary Pulmonary Hypertension.

In April 1998, he was appointed by the federal court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, overseeing the consolidated national diet pill litigation (MDL [multi-district litigation] #1203 In Re Diet Pill Litigation) to the Plaintiff's Discovery and Expert Witness Committees, where he played a key role throughout the 1998 to 2001 period. Those efforts contributed to the successfully negotiated $6.4 billion dollar global settlement of almost 6,000,000 Fen-Phen diet pill claims pending in the federal court MDL. That settlement, judicially approved by the federal court on August 30, 2000, is among the largest mass tort resolutions in United States history.

In the years since conclusion of the Linnen trial, Mr. MacDonald has been lead trial counsel in over sixty (60) additional Primary Pulmonary Hypertension (PPH) wrongful death cases arising from Fen-Phen pharmaceutical exposure. These PPH cases in Massachusetts, Texas, Louisiana, Colorado, Kentucky, New York, Utah, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Illinois, involve litigation widely acknowledged in the trial bar to comprise among the most sophisticated and serious variety of pharmaceutical/products liability litigation. The pivotal role played by Mr. MacDonald and the trial team he led in the national Fen-Phen litigation is chronicled in the book Dispensing with the Truth: The Battle over Fen-Phen (St. Martin's Press, 2001) by Alicia Mundy. Ms. Mundy is the reporter for The Wall Street Journal who covers and reports upon the Food & Drug Administration (FDA).

Between 2001 and 2006, Mr. MacDonald prosecuted cases across the country on behalf of stroke and death victims of the drug Phenylpropanolamine (PPA), which was withdrawn from the United States marketplace by order of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on November 6, 2000. The team led by Mr. MacDonald filed the first-in-the-nation wrongful death case arising from PPA use on February 13, 2001, Estate of Ziolkowski vs. Novartis (Federal District Court for The District of Massachusetts). On January 17, 2002, Mr. MacDonald was appointed by Judge Barbara Jacobs Rothstein as one of the twelve (12) Plaintiff Steering Committee lawyers charged with overseeing and prosecuting the national PPA Litigation; MDL #1407, In Re: Phenylpropanolamine (PPA) Products Liability Litigation, pending in the Federal District Court in Seattle, Washington.

Mr. MacDonald favorably resolved over twenty-five (25) PPA cases between June 2003 and mid-2006, including two catastrophic pediatric stroke cases -- one in Portland, Maine and the other Boston, Massachusetts. The June 2003 eight-figure, eve-of-trial settlement in the Portland case is the largest personal injury recovery ever obtained in the State of Maine. Additional one million to ten million dollar recoveries for PPA stroke victims were obtained by Mr. MacDonald in death and near-death cases in Massachusetts, Tennessee, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Between September 2006 and October 2013, Mr. MacDonald led, along with his partner Kenneth Rothweiler, a team of trial lawyers from his firm in fourteen (14) scientifically complex wrongful death cases in federal or state courts in Massachusetts, Illinois, Utah, New Jersey, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Georgia arising from fatal Fentanyl drug overdoses resulting from leakage defects in the transdermal "Duragesic Patch," a potent pain relief medical device manufactured and marketed by subsidiaries of Johnson & Johnson. All of the Duragesic/Fentanyl patch cases were resolved in favor of Mr. MacDonald’s clients for seven (7) figure settlement sums.

Currently, Mr. MacDonald and his colleagues spearhead national litigation against the manufactures of Testosterone (“LowT”) containing prescription products for heart attack, stroke and death injuries associated with Testosterone supplement use. Mr. MacDonald’s office currently represents over 70 plaintiffs in the Testosterone Litigation, MDL #2545, In Re Testosterone Replacement Therapy Products Liability Litigation overseen by federal Judge Matthew F. Kennelly, which MDL is pending in federal court in Chicago, Illinois. In July 2014 and again in July 2016, Mr. MacDonald was judicially appointed to membership on the Testosterone Litigation Plaintiff’s Steering Committee as well as the Science and Expert Committee.

Education: Mr. MacDonald, a graduate with distinction from Boston University and Harvard Law School, is a frequent invited lecturer on tort law, trial technique, and mass tort legal issues at Continuing Legal Education seminars across the United States. In addition, he and his trial team colleagues are regularly sought as co-counsel by other experienced trial attorneys in the United States who are engaged in complex or mass tort pharmaceutical or medical device litigation.

Membership: Mr. MacDonald is an active member of the Boston Bar Association, where he chaired its Membership Committee from 1992 to 1998, and the American Association for Justice (AAJ). Since 1989, he has served on the board of directors of the Greater Boston Legal Services, Inc., an antipoverty legal agency, and it's Executive Committee from 1992 to 1999.

Professional Presentations

• The Mass Tort Plaintiff's Lawyer Career: The Ethical Constraints and Institutional Challenges (May 24, 2013) invited lecture presented at Stanford Law School, Palo Alto, CA.

• Mass Tort Litigation Against Big Pharma: Career Highlights/Career Lessons (May 20, 2012) invited lecture presented at Stanford Law School, Palo Alto, CA.

• "The Hot Liability Documents: The Plaintiff's Advantage in High Stakes Corporate Litigation," presented at The National Forum for Environmental and Toxic Tort Issues (FETTI) Conference (October 6, 2011) Union League Club, Chicago, IL.

• The Plaintiff's Lawyer Career: The Ethical Constraints and Institutional Challenges (May 19, 2011) invited lecture presented at Stanford Law School, Palo Alto, CA.

• Mass Torts and Class Action Litigation (May 21, 2008) presented at MA Bar Association, Boston, MA;

• Complex, Multi-Party Pharmaceutical Litigation: MDLs, Class Actions and Vanguard State Court Cases (March 10, 2006) presented at 2006 Utah Bar Spring Convention, St. George, UT;

• The Legal Process: Courtrooms and Controversies (undergraduate course) (December 9, 2005) presented at Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA;

• Pharmaceutical Litigation: Cutting Edge Issues, Principles & Tactics (May 26, 2005) presented at MCLE, Boston, MA;

• Mass Tort Pharmaceutical Litigation (April 26, 2005) University of CT Law School, Hartford, CT;

• Mass Torts, MDLs and Class Actions: The Resolution of Complex Multi-party National Litigation (May 11, 2004) presented at MCLE: 7 th Annual Personal Injury Law Conference, Boston, MA;

• Spoliation of Electronically Stored Evidence: Sanctions and Remedies (January 15, 2004) presented at Boston Bar Association, Boston, MA;

• Electronic Discovery & Computer Forensics: Discovery Techniques in a "Paperless" Case (May 20, 2003) presented at MCLE, Boston, MA;

• Trial Advocacy: Trial Techniques and Strategies in a Pharmaceutical Case (November 1, 2002) presented at MD & VA Trial Lawyers Association, Washington, D.C.;

• Class Action/Mass Tort Symposium: Plaintiffs Perspective Regarding Discovery Strategies (October 25, 2002) presented at LA Bar Association, New Orleans, LA;

• PPH & Ephedra Litigation Conference: The Utility of Computer Generated and Video Evidence (August 1, 2002) presented at MEALEY'S, San Diego, CA;

• The PPA MDL: Status of MDL Discovery and PPA Trial Preparation (September 12, 2002) presented at Mass Torts Made Perfect, Inc., Paradise Island, Bahamas;

• Personal Injury Law/Mass Tort Pharmaceutical Litigation (May 22, 2002) presented at MCLE: 5 th Annual Personal Injury Law Conference, Boston, MA;

• Electronic Discovery: Best Practices & Evolving Law (June 10-11, 2001) presented at Bureau of National Affairs (BNA), Washington, D.C.;

• Trial Advocacy Workshop: Computerized Demonstrative Evidence in the "Paperless Trial" (June 2001) presented at MCLE, Boston, MA;

• Class Actions and Mass Tort Claims: An Overview of the Fen/Phen and Phenylpropanolamine (PPA) MDLs (May 30, 2001) presented at Boston Bar Association, Boston, MA;

• Mass Tort: Scientific Evidence & Causation (May 2001) presented at MEALEY'S, West Palm Beach, FL;

• Mass Torts: Scientific Evidence & Proof of Causation (April 5-6, 2001) presented at MEALEY'S, Boston, MA;

• Initial PPA & Ephedra Conference: Status of the First Filed Wrongful Death Actions (March 12-13, 2001) presented at MEALEY'S, Philadelphia, PA;

• "Phenylpropanolamine (PPA) Litigation: The Early Evidence of Liability," (March 2001) presented at MEALEY'S Conference, Philadelphia, PA;

• The Trial of a Diet Pill Wrongful Death Case: The Opening Statement and Spoliation Argument, Estate of Linnen v. AHP (September 2000) presented at MDL-Sponsored Seminar, New Orleans, LA;

• Fen/Phen Litigation: The MDL's Best Liability Documents and Videotaped Experts (September 2000) presented at MDL-Sponsored Seminar, Las Vegas, NV;

• Trial Advocacy Workshop: Computer Generated Demonstrative Evidence (August 8, 2000) presented at MCLE, Boston, MA;

• The Trial of a Primary Pulmonary Hypertension Fen/Phen Case: Estate of Linnen v. AHP. (July 29 - August 2, 2000) presented at ATLA, Chicago, IL;

• Fen/Phen Trial Strategies Conference (March 2000) presented at MEALEY'S, Philadelphia, PA;

• Fen-Phen Trial Strategies Conference: Opening Statements in a Wrongful Death Case (March 16-17, 2000) presented at MEALEY'S, West Palm Beach, FL;

• Fen-Phen Trial Strategies Conference: Opening Statements in a Wrongful Death Case (July 17-21, 1999) presented at ATLA, San Francisco, CA;

• "Fen-Phen Litigation Conference," (April 1999) presented at MEALEY'S Conference, West Palm Beach, FL;

• Fen-Phen Trial Strategies Conference: Report on the Status of Discovery of the Defense Documents (March 4-5, 1999) presented at MEALEY'S, Philadelphia, PA;

• Diet Pills and Primary Pulmonary Hypertension (PPH): The Scientific Case for a Causal Link (December 7-8, 1998) presented at MEALEY'S, Newport Beach, CA;

• Litigating Fen-Phen Cases: The AHP Corporate Structure and Key Witnesses (October 16-17, 1998) presented at MEALEY'S, Las Vegas, NV;

• Litigating Fen-Phen Cases: The AHP Corporate Structure and Key Witnesses (May 13, 1998) presented at MCLE: Personal Injury Conference '98, Boston, MA;

• Fen-Phen Redux Diet Pills: The Next Wave of Tort Litigation (March 27, 1998) presented at ATLA, Atlanta, GE;

• Fen-Phen Litigations Conference: Estate of Mary Linnen v. AHP: The status of Discovery in a Vanguard State Court Case (March 9-10, 1998) presented at MEALEY'S, Marina del Rey, CA;

• Fen-Phen and Redux Litigation: The medical and Scientific Evidence in a PPH Case (January 15, 1998) presented at MCLE, Boston, MA.