Mylan’s lawsuit targets a series of articles about possible violations at Mylan’s Morgantown plant by the same two reporters who broke the story questioning Mylan President Heather Bresch’s academic record at West Virginia University.
The latest chapter of the conflict between the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Mylan Pharmaceuticals occurred last week, when Mylan filed a civil lawsuit against the paper, two reporters, and at least three other unknown persons in Monongalia County Circuit Court.
In July, the Post-Gazette published the article “Mylan workers overrode drug quality controls.”
The newspaper cited an internal report at Mylan which showed “workers were routinely overriding computer-generated warnings about potential problems with the medications they were producing,” the newspaper reported.
On August 13th, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration completed its investigation and concluded there were no major violations at the Morgantown plant.
Judy Leon is an FDA spokeswoman.
“The company took a remedial step that was very necessary in providing training to operators and also to implement a patch, or a repair on the system that would disable that function allowing employees to override data,” she said.
“So that function that created part of the problem here has been fixed in terms of the IT system.”
According to the complaint, Mylan is seeking the return of internal documents it argues were wrongfully obtained and mischaracterized by the Post-Gazette.
Mylan is also seeking an undetermined amount of compensation. The suit also states the Post-Gazette revealed Mylan’s trade secrets without its consent.
But advocates for press freedom worry the lawsuit will have a chilling effect on investigative journalism.
Lucy Dalglish is the executive director of The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
She says Mylan will have to prove the newspaper proactively sought the materials.
“If a journalist was involved in actively seeking and obtaining specific documents, or they could be found to have induced someone to break the law, there could be some ethical and legal questions there,” she said.
Dalglish says Mylan also will have to prove the newspaper actively sought the trade secrets.
“The newspaper has no obligation to protect trade secrets of a company. It’s the company’s responsibility to protect the trade secrets,” she said.
“If the reporter walked into that building, opened a file cabinet, or hacked into a computer system and stole the trade secrets, then that reporter is in trouble.”
Dalglish cited a case involving The Cincinnati Enquirer newspaper and the Chiquita Banana Company.
A reporter used a password to obtain voice messages from Chiquita executives without their permission.
The company sued, and won the case because the reporter actively sought the information.
Dalglish says Mylan must prove that happened here as well.
“If an employee came out and said this is what I’m hearing within my company, the reporter can use that,” she said.
“There was a case called Bartnicki out of Pennsylvania a number of years ago, where some people were illegally tape recorded talking about a very controversial issue,” she said.
“A radio reporter was given tapes of those conversations. He had no idea who they came from because he found them in his mailbox. He used them, and the U.S. Supreme Court said that’s ok.”
John Robinson Block, the Post-Gazette's publisher and editor-in-chief, said in a statement the newspaper stands behind its reporting and news-gathering and will vigorously defend the suit.
The conflict between Mylan and the Post-Gazette started in October 2007, when Heather Bresch, the daughter of Gov. Joe Manchin, was named Chief Operating Officer of Mylan.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporters Patricia Sabatini and Len Boselovic reported discrepancies in Bresch’s academic history at West Virginia University, and later uncovered that Bresch may not have earned an MBA from the university as she had claimed.
In April 2008, an independent five member panel concluded Bresch did not complete her MBA degree, leading eventually to the resignation of then WVU President, Mike Garrison.
Last month, Bresch was promoted to president of Mylan.