A federal jury on Friday awarded $15 million to a 10-year-old boy whose mother blamed his birth defect on AbbVie Inc’s (ABBV.N) bipolar disorder drug Depakote that she took while pregnant, in the latest trial among hundreds of lawsuits over the product.
Jurors in federal court in East St. Louis, Illinois, awarded the compensatory damages to Stevie Gonzalez, who was born with spina bifida. His mother, Christina Raquel, said she was not adequately warned about a risk of birth defects when she took Depakote while pregnant.
Jurors awarded no punitive damages during a second phase of the trial, according to court papers. The lawsuit was filed against Abbott Laboratories Inc.
