The family of an Oklahoma man who died of kidney failure after taking cholesterol drug Baycol is suing the drug's U.S. manufacturer, Bayer Corp., a plaintiff's attorney said on Tuesday, alleging the product was defective and led to injury.

It was the first announcement of a U.S. suit linking Baycol with deceased patients who took the drug and the first suit in which class-action status is being sought, according to the plaintiff's lawyer.

Bayer Corp.'s parent, Bayer AG of Germany, withdrew Baycol from the market last week over concerns about potentially deadly side effects, including muscular breakdown. The chemical and drugs firm on Monday said 52 deaths worldwide had been linked with the drug.

The Oklahoma suit was filed on Friday on behalf of Steven Sparks, a survivor of Lilbert Sparks Jr., who died March 2 of kidney failure brought on by severe muscle degeneration, plaintiff's attorney Don Strong of Strong, Martin & Associates told Reuters.

Strong said he expects that damages sought in the suit, filed in the U.S District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, could reach the ``multimillion-dollar level'' if it is granted class-action status.

``The product as it was manufactured was defective and as a result, injuries occurred,'' Strong said. ``The duty of any manufacturer is to make products that are safe for the purposes of what they are sold. We allege there has been a breach of that duty.''

The suit claims that Baycol ``was defective at the time of its manufacture, distribution and sale, and said medication was unreasonably dangerous to a person taking the medication.''

Lilbert Sparks ``was administered Baycol for its stated purposes, and subsequently died as a direct result thereof,'' the filing claims.

It also alleges that Bayer ``failed to adequately warn physicians, other health-care professionals and consumers of the dangers'' of taking Baycol and failed to inform the public of injuries or deaths related to the drug.

A spokeswoman for Bayer said the firm does not comment on matters of litigation.

Industry watchers expect several lawsuits to surface in the fallout of the Baycol withdrawal, just as lawsuits followed when diet drug fen-phen and diabetes medicine Rezulin were pulled from the market.