Lead plaintiff Elbert Fry, 66, of Gallatin, Mo., was audited and approved for A-Matrix benefits in September 2002 based on an echocardiogram showing moderate mitral regurgitation and an ejection fraction of 48 percent, the plaintiffs say. More than a year later, Fry, still unpaid, was served with the trust's new 18-page, 39-question Medical Practices Questionnaire (MPQ), which must be completed by his cardiologist, Linda Crouse, M.D., of Kansas City, Mo. Crouse is the defendant in a racketeering lawsuit filed Sept. 18 that alleges fraud in her handling of thousands of echocardiograms for matrix claimants.

The plaintiffs, in a complaint filed by Napoli, Kaiser, Bern and Associates in New York, say the trust's issuance of 16,000 MPQs to 13 cardiologists is "a ruse by which the Trust has seen fit to unilaterally decide who it wants to pay out of the National Settlement Fund." The plaintiffs say it is physically impossible for the physicians to personally complete the forms by the Dec. 15 deadline and that because even Wyeth admits that the trust may run out of money, the MPQs put the plaintiffs at the back of the queue and make them unlikely to receive benefits even if their claims are eventually approved.

"Assuming each of the 13 physicians has received approximately 1,000 MPQ's it is estimated that it would take anywhere [from] 300 to 2,000 hours for each physician to complete the MPQ's so that the claims of 16,000 claimants could resume processing," the plaintiffs say. "It is impossible for the MPQ's to be completed by Dec. 15, 2003; there are simply not enough hours in a day. Three hundred hours represents seven and one-half weeks of continuous work by cardiologists, who have otherwise active clinical practices, devoted to nothing other than filling out the newly required forms."

Plaintiff attorneys at a recent status conference said that cardiologists might be wary of signing additional forms in light of the racketeering lawsuit against Crouse and that the trust has not provided any remedy for claimants whose physician is unable or unwilling to complete the forms by the deadline.

The plaintiffs say that under a recently proposed program, pro se claimants are "leapfrogged" over those represented by counsel.

"Class members cannot be subjected to the sort of disparate treatment created by the proposed Pro Se Completeness Program; the interests of one group of class members - in this case, class members represented by counsel - cannot suffer to satisfy the interests of other - in this case, unrepresented - class members," the plaintiffs say. "The disparate treatment has not ended with the Pro Se Completeness program but continues to [be] implemented at every turn by defendants."