EzriCare Lawsuit: Injuries, Defendants, and Case Status

The EzriCare lawsuit is a wave of federal product liability cases and class actions filed against EzriCare LLC and related manufacturers, distributors, and retailers after contaminated artificial tears were linked to a deadly nationwide outbreak of drug-resistant bacterial infections. The CDC tied EzriCare Artificial Tears to at least 81 infections across 18 states, causing 14 cases of permanent vision loss, four surgical eye removals, and four deaths.¹ As of mid-2026, hundreds of cases remain active in federal courts, none have gone to trial, and no settlements have been approved, though settlement discussions have reportedly begun.²

What the Drops Did

The infections were caused by an extensively drug-resistant strain of Pseudomonas aeruginosa called VIM-GES-CRPA (sequence type 1203), a strain that had never been reported in the United States before and was resistant to nearly every common antibiotic, including carbapenems, fluoroquinolones, and polymyxins. Only one drug, cefiderocol, showed effectiveness against most isolates.³

Patients tracked by the CDC between January 2022 and May 2023 developed infections in the eyes, bloodstream, respiratory tract, and urinary tract. Among the 18 patients with eye infections, four required enucleation, the surgical removal of the eyeball. Four patients died within 30 days of detection.³ The CDC genetically matched bacteria from both opened and unopened bottles of EzriCare Artificial Tears to the strains taken from patients, and a case-control study found a fivefold increase in the odds of infection for people who had used the drops.¹

Global Pharma Healthcare issued a voluntary nationwide recall of EzriCare Artificial Tears and Delsam Pharma’s Artificial Tears on February 2, 2023. Later that month, the FDA also recommended recall of Delsam Pharma’s Artificial Eye Ointment after finding bacterial contamination in unopened tubes.⁴

Who Is Being Sued

Lawsuits have named a network of companies involved in making, importing, branding, and selling the drops:

Global Pharma Healthcare Private Limited, the Indian manufacturer that produced the artificial tears at its facility in Tamil Nadu.⁵
EzriCare LLC, a New Jersey-based company that held the EzriCare trademark and marketed the product.⁶
EzriRx LLC, a Delaware company sharing the same Lakewood, New Jersey office as EzriCare, alleged to have been involved in marketing, labeling, and distribution.⁷
Aru Pharma Inc., a New York-based importer and distributor.⁷
Delsam Pharma LLC, a New York company that sold the same Global Pharma-made drops under its own label.⁷

Retailers, including Walmart and Amazon, have also been named as defendants in various complaints.⁸

What Plaintiffs Claim

The first suits followed within days of the February 2023 recall, including cases brought by Teresa Phillips in the Middle District of Florida and Richard Mosley in Kentucky.⁹ On February 11, 2023, Carolyn Ward of Idaho filed one of the earliest complaints in the District of New Jersey, alleging product liability, breach of warranty, negligence, and negligence per se, and describing severe pain, mental anguish, and ongoing medical complications.¹⁰

By June 2023, at least 14 lawsuits had been filed in federal courts. The count has since grown into the hundreds, mixing individual injury suits with class actions. Plaintiffs have brought claims for strict product liability based on manufacturing defects and defective design, failure to warn, negligence and gross negligence, fraud and fraudulent concealment, breach of warranty, and wrongful death. Individual plaintiffs are seeking compensatory and punitive damages for injuries ranging from corneal ulcers to permanent blindness and death. Class action plaintiffs have sought refunds of the purchase price.¹¹

Where the Cases Stand Now

The lawsuits remain in pretrial stages. They have not been consolidated into multidistrict litigation, and no bellwether trials or jury trial dates have been set. No settlements have been approved, though settlement discussions are reportedly underway. New filings have slowed, and most law firms are reportedly no longer accepting new cases tied to the contaminated drops.²

A few rulings have already shaped who stays in the cases. In Kerkhoff v. EzriCare, LLC (Case No. 23-01652, District of New Jersey), Judge Georgette Castner granted Amazon’s motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction on May 31, 2024, finding the plaintiff had not shown Amazon directed sufficient activity toward New Jersey. The same opinion denied EzriRx’s motion to dismiss, finding a plausible causal connection between the injury and EzriRx’s role in marketing and distributing the product.¹² Amazon was dismissed on similar jurisdictional grounds from Hartwell v. EzriCare on June 3, 2024.¹³ EzriCare’s own attempts to get suits dismissed had been unsuccessful by late 2024.² In Kerkhoff, however, the plaintiff later voluntarily dismissed EzriCare and EzriRx with prejudice in February 2026, and the case was terminated in December 2025.¹⁴

A newer putative class action, Starling v. EzriCare LLC et al., was filed in New Jersey federal court on January 31, 2025. Plaintiff Tabitha Starling asserted 13 counts, including strict liability, gross negligence, fraud, and violations of the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act, and demanded a jury trial.¹¹

What Regulators Found

FDA findings support many of the plaintiffs’ allegations. Inspectors who visited Global Pharma Healthcare’s Tamil Nadu plant in late February and early March 2023 found manual production lines with no assurance of sterility, “grease-like residue” on equipment, cracked sealant and protruding nails in cleanroom walls, and workers in discolored, worn protective clothing. Testing of intact, unopened units confirmed 18 non-sterile batches of artificial tears and one batch of eye ointment.¹⁵ The FDA placed Global Pharma on Import Alert 66-40 in January 2023, and on October 20, 2023, issued a formal warning letter citing Current Good Manufacturing Practice violations, including inadequate sterilization, failed container closure integrity, and no incoming-component testing. The agency called the products both “adulterated” and “misbranded” under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.⁵

EzriCare LLC received its own warning letter on February 13, 2024. The FDA faulted the company for failing to maintain adequate procedures to qualify its contract manufacturer and for lacking any written system to handle consumer complaints.⁶

1
CDC. Outbreak of Extensively Drug-Resistant Pseudomonas Aeruginosa Associated With Artificial Tears
2
Drugwatch. EzriCare Artificial Tears Lawsuits
3
Oxford Academic. Outbreak Investigation of VIM-GES-CRPA Associated With Artificial Tears
4
FDA. FDA Warns Consumers Not to Purchase or Use EzriCare Artificial Tears Due to Potential Contamination
5
FDA. Global Pharma Healthcare Private Limited Warning Letter
6
FDA. EzriCare LLC Warning Letter
7
ClassAction.org. Mosley v. EzriCare LLC et al.
8
Androvett Legal Media & Marketing. First New Jersey Lawsuit Filed Against EzriCare Eye Drops and Walmart
9
ConsumerNotice.org. EzriCare Lawsuits
10
MakeFoodSafe.com. Ward v. EzriCare LLC et al., Complaint
11
Eyes on Eyecare. Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against EzriCare Over Artificial Tears
12
CaseMine. Kerkhoff v. EzriCare, LLC, Memorandum Opinion
13
Bloomberg Law. Amazon Trimmed From Lawsuit Over Recalled EzriCare Eye Product
14
PACER Monitor. Kerkhoff v. EzriCare, LLC et al.
15
CBS News. Eye Drops Recall Factory FDA Inspection Global Pharma Healthcare