Last week, it was reported that five people close to the
DePuy ASR MDL 2197 litigation confirmed settlement discussions. In response, the leadership of the Executive Committee,
emailed the following statement to those reporters: “The lawyers and leadership
in the cooperating jurisdictions are working for the benefit of the 35,000
United States patients who have this recalled medical device. We have reviewed
some 50 million pages of documents that have been produced and have taken over
50 depositions. At this time we have a significant number of trials set
with the company and we are primarily focusing our efforts on trial
preparation. Any comment relating to settlement that does not come from
leadership, the Court, or from the company itself, is speculative and
uninformed.”
The first case will start in Los Angeles on
Tuesday. While it is part of the California proceedings, California
leadership and the MDL leadership have been working cooperatively to develop
evidence, witnesses and experts for this case as well as all cases across the
country. Next month, another trial is set to start in Illinois which is
also part of the cooperating jurisdictions. Judge Katz, who presides
over the MDL, selected two plaintiffs’ cases for trial. The first will
occur in May in Toledo and the second will be in July.
