A former Amgen patent attorney, who claims was fired last summer for complaining of “unethical and illegal practices,” can take his case to a California state court instead of being forced to go aribitration, which Amgen requries of all employees with a dispute. The ruling means that other former and current Amgen employees may have the potential to pursue claims in public court in California, where the biotech is headquartered, instead of closed-door arbitration proceedings.

“Amgen required all employees to sign an arbitration agreement as a condition of employment. This allows all employees who have a dispute to go to court and have their case heard before a jury,” says Rob Henning, the lawyer for former Amgen attorney Darrell Dotson.

“A recent study showed that more than 80 percent of cases heard in arbitration by the American Arbitration Association resulted in no verdict for employees. Those are horrible odds. You’re more likely to prevail in court. And typically, when you do prevail in arbitration, you get a much lower verdict.

In his ruling, Superior Court Judge Henry Walsh wrote that the Amgen arbitration agreement was “flawed,” because Amgen held various advantages, such as the ability of an arbitrator to determine the need of a plaintiff to seek numerous depositions. “To leave the ability to obtain this testimony to an arbitrators determination of ‘need’ has the potential to work a fatal disadvantage to plaintiff,” he wrote.

Dotson, who was hired in 2004, was liasion to Amgen’s outside counsel in a controversial lawsuit against Roche, which sought to market its Mircera anemia med in the US, until the biotech filed a patent infringement lawsuit (here is his lawsuit). Two months ago, a federal judge in Boston ruled the drugmaker infringed on Amgen’s patents for Aranesp and Epogen (back story here). UPDATE: An Amgen spokesman sends us this: “We believe Mr. Dotson’s claims are without merit and we will defend against them vigorously. Beyond that, we have no comment on this litigation.”

pic thx to katerha on flickr