Depo-Provera MDL 3140 Proof of Use and Injury Records

A Depo-Provera file can arrive from several places at once. The injections may come from a women's health clinic, a primary care office or a county health department, and the diagnosis from a different health system entirely. Building Depo-Provera MDL proof of use records means pulling those threads into one package that a reader can check page by page.

The court in MDL 3140 has said, in writing, what it wants that package to show. This post walks through those orders and how a medical record review team organizes the records against them.

Where does MDL 3140 stand in late 2026?

MDL 3140 is pending in the Northern District of Florida, Pensacola Division, before Judge M. Casey Rodgers. The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation centralized the cases there on February 7, 2025, according to the JPML transfer order and the court's MDL 3140 page.

The transferred actions allege that Depo-Provera, or its generic equivalents, can cause intracranial meningioma, a type of brain tumor. The court's page also notes that the defendants maintain the medication is safe and effective. The JPML order adds that actions alleging the same injury from Depo-SubQ Provera 104 are also appropriate for inclusion in the MDL.

The settlement track is set out in a series of orders:

• Case Management Order No. 12 records that the parties signed a Master Settlement Agreement on July 21, 2026, and describes it as a private agreement governed by a confidentiality agreement.
• Case Management Order No. 13 (August 5, 2026) appoints BrownGreer PLC as Settlement Administrator.
• Case Management Order No. 14 (filed August 10, 2026) states the court's understanding that the deadline for claimants to register to participate in the Settlement Program is November 30, 2026. It also says an administrative docket for Settlement Program participants will be set up through a separate order.

Eligibility terms are confidential, and this post doesn't discuss them. Counsel confirms each client's status.

What does proof of use have to show?

Proof of use has to show that the plaintiff used a covered product, with documentation, plus a declaration of the dates. That is the wording of Case Management Order No. 14, paragraph 25(c), for what the order calls Litigating Plaintiffs (non-settling, ineligible and future-filed plaintiffs who continue in litigation after the Settlement Program, as the order defines those groups): "All available documentation establishing that the Litigating Plaintiff used an MPA Product" and "a declaration setting forth the first date when the Litigating Plaintiff used an MPA Product, the last date when the Litigating Plaintiff used an MPA Product, and the intervening date ranges when the Litigating Plaintiff used an MPA Product."

CMO 14 defines "MPA Product" to include Depo-Provera, Depo-SubQ Provera 104 and authorized generic versions. Earlier in the case, a threshold process under Pretrial Order No. 17 required all plaintiffs to produce "initial documentary proof of use for each named Defendant's product," with deficiency processes under Pretrial Order No. 22. The records should show which product was given, as the record names it.

The records that usually carry use:

• Injection administration entries in clinic and OB-GYN notes, often a short line with the date, the drug and the site.
• Medication administration records, where the clinic keeps one.
• Visit notes that order or plan the injection, including any "next injection due" line in the visit note.
• Billing and claims records, which can confirm a visit and an administered drug when the clinical note is thin.
• Pharmacy records, where the drug was dispensed rather than stocked in the clinic. Where the clinic gave the injection from its own stock, there is no fill to find, so pharmacy records are secondary evidence. The post on pharmacy fill records in a medical chronology covers how fills get matched to visits.

Product identity deserves its own column. A note may say "Depo-Provera," "DMPA," "medroxyprogesterone IM" or "Depo-SubQ Provera 104." The Plaintiff Fact Sheet attached to CMO 14 lists brand, generic and route options separately, including intramuscular and subcutaneous injections and tablets. The package carries each record's own wording and doesn't translate one name into another.

How do you turn scattered injections into a use timeline?

Turn them into a dated list. Each documented administration becomes one row: the date, the product as written, the facility, and the source page. The first and last documented dates, and the stretches between them, fall out of that list.

CMO 14 asks for "intervening date ranges" of use, and a line drawn from the first injection to the last may not match the records. A row that says "administration documented" is different from a row that says "next injection due." A missed appointment, a move to another clinic, a year with no records returned: each one shows on the timeline as a gap, with the dates on either side and a note on what was requested.

The declaration itself is the plaintiff's and counsel's document. The timeline gives counsel a page-cited list to check it against. Where the records and the client's recollection differ, the timeline shows what the records say and flags the difference for counsel.

The checklist in verifying a vendor's exposure timeline applies to a vendor-built use timeline too.

What does proof of injury have to show?

Proof of injury has to document the diagnosis, the treatment and any ongoing injury the plaintiff alleges. CMO 14, paragraph 25(d), asks for "All available documentation concerning the Litigating Plaintiff's meningioma diagnosis, Litigating Plaintiffs' course of treatment for meningioma (including any radiation or surgery), and any ongoing or permanent injuries alleged by Litigating Plaintiffs to be related to MPA Product use."

The records that usually carry it:

• Imaging reports for the brain MRI or CT that first describes the mass, and each later study, with its date and the radiologist's impression quoted as written.
• Neurosurgery and neurology notes, including consults, operative reports and post-operative visits.
• Radiation oncology records, where treatment included radiation.
• Pathology reports, quoted in the pathologist's words. If the diagnosis rests on imaging alone, the package says so.
• Follow-up notes that record the patient's later reports and the clinician's findings, each attributed.

The package quotes diagnoses as documented and doesn't restate them in stronger or softer terms. Any link between an ongoing complaint and Depo-Provera use is for the experts to address.

Which records before and after diagnosis belong in the file?

CMO 14, paragraph 25(e), asks for "All medical records relating to the Litigating Plaintiff from any time before, during, and after the Litigating Plaintiff's meningioma diagnosis relating to the diagnosis or treatment of Plaintiff's meningioma." So the file reaches back before the diagnosis as well as forward from it.

CMO 14 also says who gathers these records, in paragraphs 26 to 27. Under paragraph 26, each litigating plaintiff and her counsel must affirmatively collect and produce records from all available sources in her possession, custody, or control, including records from her treating providers, and producing authorizations to the defendants is not enough. Under paragraph 27, counsel signs an affidavit that the records have been collected and produced. Where a record does not exist or cannot be obtained, the affidavit says so and includes a "No Records Statement" from each records custodian, or proof of return to sender if the provider's last known address is no longer valid. For a records package, that means logging each request and response, so any gap points to a documented request.

Earlier records can include headache or vision complaints, neurology visits or imaging, where the records themselves connect them to the later workup. Each goes in with its date and source. Prior history stays visible. The package doesn't interpret it, weigh it, or decide what it means for the claim.

When the before, during and after records come from different systems, a consistent index keeps them findable in one place. The post on sorting and indexing medical records for mass tort covers that step.

Counsel decides what the records prove

A records team decides how the package is organized and cited. Everything that turns on the merits stays with counsel and the experts.

In mass tort medical record review, a records team's part is to retrieve, sort, index and summarize what the records document: each documented administration date with its page, product names as written, the diagnosis and treatment in the clinicians' words, and gaps and inconsistencies flagged. Whether a client is eligible for the Settlement Program, whether they should register, whether the records support causation and what a claim is worth are decisions for counsel and the experts.

Screening a new claimant is a separate step, covered in red flags worth checking at claimant screening.

For drug and device litigation more broadly, our mass tort litigation support page describes how we organize records across a claimant inventory.

The court's orders already say what the package has to show. The work is making sure each line in it points to a page.