Ruling Hurts School

A judge in Illinois Monday severed the involvement of a company that makes ephedra products in the wrongful-death lawsuit filed by Rashidi Wheeler’s family against Northwestern University, a move that would keep the possible trial in Chicago and override a previous federal order to move the case to court proceedings in New Jersey.

Cook County Judge Kathy Flanagan’s order, which is expected to be finalized today, was seen as a defeat for Northwestern, which anticipated the out-of-state move to a courtroom that would have considered two ephedra product companies as third-party defendants subject to some financial responsibility should the Wheeler family receive a high-dollar jury award.

Tom Marszewski, an attorney for Wheeler’s family, described Flanagan’s ruling as “substantively significant,” noting that it would probably accelerate a trial starting date “within the year.”

Northwestern attorney Eric Quandt did not return calls to his Chicago office Monday.

Under Flanagan’s order, Northwestern, which contends that Wheeler’s ingestion of two ephedra-containing products provoked his death, will be forced to seek a financial reward against Nutraquest Inc. in a separate suit to be heard as part of a 53-case consolidation of personal injury cases in the U.S. District Court in Trenton, N.J. Nutraquest, formerly Cytodyne Technologies, made the Xenadrine RFA-1 tablets that Wheeler allegedly had ingested before he collapsed and died during a workout on Aug. 3, 2001.

“My suit against Northwestern has nothing to do with [Nutraquest], and I think that’s what the judge is saying -- the causation Northwestern is pointing to hasn’t been proved,” said Linda Will, Wheeler’s mother.