Yesterday, a nine member
panel found for the defendant Johnson & Johnson and their subsidiary DePuy
Orthopaedics in the first MDL bellwether case to go to trial over the Pinnacle
Metal-On-Metal hip replacement device. The jury deliberated for a little more
than two days. The trial lasted eight weeks.
In
what is a huge blow to the nearly 6,000 other claimants in the MDL, the
jury found that the devices were safe when used and implanted properly. Lawyers
for the defendants basically blamed the surgeons who implanted the plaintiff’s
devices for not properly positioning them when implanted.
The plaintiff in
the trial claimed that the metal-on-metal wear from the device resulted in exposure to extremely
high levels of cobalt and chromium which affected poisoned her blood and caused soft tissue damage. She
ultimately had to have bi-lateral hip surgeries to remove to the devices.
The Pinnacle
device is different than DePuy’s ASR Metal-On-Metal hips in several facets,
although they appear to be extremely similar. The ASR was recalled by J&J,
whereas J&J just stopped selling the metal-on-metal version of the Pinnacle
hip in August 2013 after the FDA said it would require device makers to submit
new versions of the artificial hips for pre-market approval. J&J settled the ASR MDL last year for an estimated $4 Billion.
Of course, this
is just the first chapter in what will most likely be a long and drawn out
fight. J&J and DePuy face several other Pinnacle trials in different
jurisdictions that are set soon, and there were will most likely be several
other bellwether trials coming out of the MDL.
