COVID vaccine injury lawsuit surge: DOJ's hiring lawyers, but what about Big Pharma?

The Biden administration is beefing up its legal team to handle a rising number of lawsuits over COVID-19 vaccines.

The Justice Department recently posted an online ad on LinkedIn seeking eight trial attorneys to work on cases under the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP). This program provides compensation for covered serious injuries or deaths that occur as the result of the administration or use of certain countermeasures regarding government COVID-19 vaccine mandates. The compensation may include unreimbursed medical expenses, lost employment income and the survivor death benefit.

The recruitment drive comes on the heels of a little-noticed lawsuit filed in Louisiana last month by six vaccine-injured plaintiffs against the federal government. The suit aims to overturn the legal immunity that pharmaceutical giants such as Pfizer and Moderna have for their COVID shots.

The posting advised applicants that they will have to handle heavy caseloads and work on cases that involve complex scientific issues that require expert witnesses. It also said that because most cases are resolved without a trial, attorneys should be prepared to engage in settlement and damage negotiations.

The CICP, created in 2005, has been used to deal with claims resulting from public health emergencies such as anthrax exposure and the Ebola virus. Adverse side effects to the COVID-19 vaccine are rare, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, although some have died from them. Myocarditis, among the side effects, is most common in young males.

Related: COVID lawsuits (and their impact on U.S. public health policies)

Unaccustomed to handling a large volume of cases, the program was flooded with nearly 13,000 COVID-related claims since Jan. 31, 2020. Only 32 had been deemed eligible for compensation and 1,129 had been denied as of October, when there was a backlog of nearly 4,000 claims. Petitioners argued they didn’t have the opportunity to review evidence used against them or engage in other basic practices that would be given to them in a trial. There are no hearings in CICP cases, and the decision is made by unidentified officials based on what a claimant submits. Only six people had been compensated thus far, reportedly receiving an average of $2,148 each.

Lawyers working on the cases hope Congress will pass legislation to reform how vaccine injuries are handled and for people to take action against pharmaceutical companies, not just the government.

“‘This is the first domino to fall,” David Carney, a Green & Schafle LLC attorney representing people injured by vaccines, told Bloomberg. “We’re going to start to see a windfall.”