Ethicon Loses Mesh Case with $57.1M Verdict

Earlier this month, a Philadelphia jury awarded $57.1 million in damages to a woman who accused Johnson & Johnson of manufacturing a defective pelvic mesh implant that scarred her urethra and left her incontinent. The award included $50 million in punitive damages. The plaintiff claimed that a pair of negligently and defectively designed mesh devices, the TVT-Secur and the standard TVT product, had left her with little control over her urinary flow.

The plaintiff was implanted with the TVT-Secur mesh device in May 2007 to treat symptoms of stress urinary incontinence and ultimately received a second TVT implant after a few months when her condition did not improve. Unfortunately, the mesh had eroded into her urethra, causing incontinence and with strong pelvic pain.

Ethicon had previously lost four out of five jury trials in Philadelphia. A jury in the fifth case decided in June that while the TVT-Secur had been defectively designed, it was not the cause of the plaintiff’s injuries. A judge, however, ruled a month later that the verdict was inconsistent and ordered a new trial on damages. Before this verdict, the largest verdict the company had faced in a mesh case in Philadelphia had been a $20 million award handed down in April. That award included $17.5 million in punitive damages.

Booth Samuels and the attorneys at Pittman, Dutton & Hellums, P.C. are currently investigating mesh injury cases. If you or someone you love was implanted with a pelvic or vaginal mesh device after the year 2008 and have had revision surgery, please contact Booth Samuels at 1-866-515-8880 or by email at booths@pittmandutton.com for a free consultation.

Equifax Suffers Massive Data Breach- Your SSN May Be In the Hands of Thieves

Equifax, one of the big three credit monitoring companies, has experienced one of the most shocking data breaches in U.S. history. The breach has exposed the Social Security numbers, names, birth dates, addresses, driver’s license numbers, and other sensitive information of approximately 143 million Americans. Although there have been larger breaches in the United States, they typically do not involve Social Security numbers. The breach eclipses a 2015 hack at health insurer Anthem that involved the Social Security numbers of about 80 million people.

In addition to the personal information stolen in its breach, Equifax said the credit card numbers for about 209,000 U.S. consumers were also taken, as were "certain dispute documents" containing personal information for approximately 182,000 individuals.

It is believed that the thieves accessed files between mid-May and July of this year. Equifax discovered the hack July 29^th, but waited until September 7^th to warn consumers. However, it is not unusual for the government to ask a company hit in a major hack to delay public notice so that investigators can pursue the perpetrators. It does sound as if three Equifax executives profited from this early knowledge by selling shares worth a combined $1.8 million just a few days after the company discovered the breach on July 29th, according to documents filed with securities regulators.

The irony that Equifax, who is in charge of securing our personal information and the company we go to when our identity has been stolen, has had a major data breach has not gone unnoticed. As many as 50 lawsuits have been filed so far against the credit bureau.

Booth Samuels and the attorneys at Pittman, Dutton & Hellums, P.C. are currently investigating Equifax data breach cases. If you or someone you love has been a victim of this data breach, please contact Booth Samuels at 1-866-515-8880 or by email at booths@pittmandutton.com for a free consultation.

California Jury Hits J&J in Talc Powder Case for $347 Million

A California jury awarded $417 million to the plaintiff in the first talcum powder case to go to trial in California. The Los Angeles County jury reached the verdict, which includes $347 million in punitive damages, on August 21 against Johnson & Johnson and Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc. The trial lasted four weeks and the jury deliberated for more than two days. The jury awarded roughly $70 million in compensatory damages.

The plaintiff’s theory of the case was that there was a link between Johnson & Johnson’s talcum powder products and ovarian cancer. The award surpassed large awards from earlier trials in Missouri.

The jury found that J&J had failed to warn consumers about the increased risk of ovarian cancer caused by its Johnson’s Baby Powder and Shower to Shower products, and that the plaintiff, Eva Echeverria’s terminal ovarian cancer was caused by her use of those products. Some of the claims included the defendants refusal to place a warning on its products. Echeverria’s lawyers showed jurors evidence that talcum powder products made by national companies like Wal-Mart are now sold with a warning about the association between genital talc use and ovarian cancer.

The Defendants have indicated that they will appeal the verdict.

Echeverria filed suit with six other women in Los Angeles County Superior Court in July 2016, alleging that for years she used talcum powder mined by Imerys Talc America Inc. and sold by J&J, and that she developed ovarian cancer in 2007. Echeverria is the first plaintiff to head to trial among nearly 300 cases in the complex litigation consolidating California claims against the companies. There are an estimated 4,500 other cases pending throughout the country.

J&J’s defense during the trial focused heavily on calling into doubt how Echeverria’s experts were interpreting the scientific evidence that purported to show genital talc use caused ovarian cancer. However, the plaintiff showed, by Johnson & Johnson's own documents, dating back to 1964, that the company knew there was a risk of ovarian cancer from using talcum powder for feminine hygiene. The plaintiff’s also cited a 1982 study that shows women who used talc on their genitals were at a 92% increased risk for ovarian cancer. The lead researcher, Daniel W. Cramer, later advised Johnson & Johnson to put a warning label on the product.

The plaintiff put on evidence to show that Echevarria used Johnson Baby Powder sometimes twice a day for 41 years, continuing to do so even after she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2007. Ovarian cancer accounts for 1.3% of all new cancer cases in the U.S., according to the National Cancer Institute. But it is the eighth most common cancer and the fifth-leading cause of cancer-related death among women. Fewer than half of all patients survive five years after a diagnosis.

A St. Louis jury in May awarded $110.5 million to a Virginia woman who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2012. Three other juries in St. Louis reached similar conclusions, awarding a total of more than $300 million to the plaintiffs.

Booth Samuels and the attorneys at Pittman, Dutton & Hellums, P.C. are currently accepting talc-injury cases. If you or someone you love is a female that regularly used J&J Baby Powder or Shower to Shower and, since the year 2000, have been diagnosed with any of the above forms of cancer, please contact Booth Samuels at 1-866-515-8880 or by email at booths@pittmandutton.com for a free consultation.

Zimmer NexGen MDL Update

Judge Pallmeyer, the Illinois federal judge overseeing Zimmer NexGen knee MDL, has ordered that all bellwether trials must be completed before the end of 2018 and directed the parties to take steps toward mediation. There have been just two jury trials on the plaintiffs’ claims, both of which ended in victory for Zimmer. Judge Pallmeyer granted Zimmer's motion for summary judgment in another case last October. The Plaintiffs have argued for a consolidated trial involving several plaintiffs with similar claims.

The MDL, which began in 2011, is currently down to approximately 300 cases from a high of more than 1,500. Claims in the MDL are that the design problems of the devices caused failures leading to revision surgeries. Judge Pallmeyer recently ruled on several of Zimmer’s motions seeking to bar evidence, require more expert reports, and grant the company summary judgment in several cases.

Zimmer filed motion for summary judgment in 94 cases that included expert reports that Zimmer claimed did not involve a review of the plaintiffs' X-rays. The reports, which were required under Judge Pallmeyer's 2016 Lone Pine Order, could not be reliable without that review, Zimmer said. But Judge Pallmeyer declined to grant the motion, saying the question of the experts’ reliability would have to be determined through individual summary judgment motions.

Judge Pallmeyer also stated that the plaintiffs’ request for remand was likely to be approved. Attorneys for the plaintiffs asked for the cases to be sent back to their home courts in May, but the Judge said in an order that month she would like to try a few more before she gave her approval.

Zimmer’s counsel has conducted a scorched-earth approach to litigation, even proposing that the Court issue a $100,000 fine on each case that was dismissed after selection for the next round of trials. Plaintiffs’ counsel obviously strenuously opposed any type of sanctions.