Judge Francis J. Jones Jr. on Monday granted defendants' motion for summary judgment in In re: Zantac (Ranitidine) Litigation, holding that plaintiffs cannot establish general causation — a required element of every claim in the docket. The ruling sweeps across tens of thousands of Delaware Zantac cases, with plaintiff-side filings putting the inventory in the range of 75,000 to more than 80,000 cases. It applies to all cases filed on or before Dec. 1, 2025.
"Having found that general causation is a required element of each of the Plaintiffs' prima facia case and that Plaintiffs have not demonstrated general causation, summary judgment must be GRANTED in favor of the Defendants," Jones wrote.
The ruling is the final step in a sequence that turned sharply against plaintiffs over the past year. In May 2024, the Superior Court had denied defendants' Daubert challenges to plaintiffs' causation experts. But in July 2025, the Delaware Supreme Court reversed, holding the trial court had erred by using an approach that favored or presumed admissibility of expert testimony. Plaintiffs then sought to supplement their expert reports, and the Superior Court denied that request on Dec. 1, 2025. Monday's summary judgment followed.
Jones rejected plaintiffs' argument that the expert-admissibility rulings applied only to a narrower bellwether pool, finding that both sides and the court understood from the outset that general-causation rulings would apply docket-wide. "To suggest that the Daubert challenges applied only to the Bellwether cases ignores not only the expressed intent of the parties and their words but the history of this litigation," the court wrote.
The court was equally firm in denying plaintiffs a second chance to build their causation case. "The deadline was met with inadequate evidence," Jones wrote. "To afford Plaintiffs the relief requested would essentially allow Plaintiffs to start over. That would be fundamentally unfair to Defendants." The court also rejected plaintiffs' Seventh Amendment, due process, and Delaware public policy arguments against docket-wide dismissal.
The ruling includes a carveout for plaintiffs who filed after Dec. 1, 2025, who may attempt to proceed with new evidence under a process still to be negotiated with the court.
The Delaware collapse marks another major setback for the Zantac plaintiff bar, which has struggled to sustain causation theories across multiple forums. Delaware had been viewed as one of the critical remaining state-court venues for ranitidine claims after the federal MDL in the Southern District of Florida ended in broad exclusion of plaintiffs' experts in late 2022.