Biomet Settles Metal-On-Metal MDL

It was reported last week that Warsaw, Indiana-based Biomet Inc. agreed to pay at least $56 million to settle claims in the Indiana MDL over defective metal-on-metal hip implants. Thousands of plaintiffs have filed suit in the MDL and this agreement would affectively resolve their claims. The cases were consolidated in October 2012.

The agreement stipulates that each plaintiff who received a Biomet M2a-38 or M2a-Magnum hip implant that later had to be revised will receive a base payment of $200,000, though the variations of each patient’s payment are numerous, dependent on an array of court-approved conditions.

The agreement may mirror the DePuy ASR settlement where deductions from base payments are incurred if the claimant smoked, had the device in for a certain amount of years, and is of a certain age. The base settlement can increase for multiple surgeries, complications from revisions, and other factors. The Biomet product was not recalled like the ASR, even though they are both metal-on-metal models.

Biomet’s settlement deal is in a sense bifurcated. The corporation will put $50 million into an escrow account to fund payments to plaintiffs who claim they were damaged by the hip implants. In the second prong, a common benefit settlement agreement, Biomet will pay $6 million to the plaintiffs’ attorneys.

The deadline to file a claim in order to be considered for participation in the settlement is April 15, 2014.

The MDL is In re: Biomet M2A Magnum Hip Implant Products Liability Litigation, case number 3:12-md-02391, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana.

Proposed Legislation Regarding Data Breaches Not Good For the Consumer

In the wake of massive security breaches that reportedly took place before and during the height of the holiday shopping season at Target, Nieman Marcus and, security experts say, probably other retailers as well, federal lawmakers have introduced a bipartisan bill that would impose new requirements on companies concerning the protection of confidential information related to credit and debit cards.

In actuality, what the proposed legislation, named the Data Security Act of 2014, would do is to greatly reduce consumer rights to seek redress for their damages through the courts. The legislation would ultimately ban private causes of actions, prohibit class actions, and prevent the consumer to sue under state law causes of action.

Introduced last week by Sens. Tom Carper (D.-Del.) and Roy Blount (R-Mo.), the Data Security Act would provide enhanced consumer security by providing uniform national standards in place of a patchwork of state laws that now exist, according to a press release. It would also require not only retailers but financial institutions and federal agencies to investigate security breaches and inform consumers. While this all sounds great, it leaves the individual who was actually harmed with little or no remedies through the courts at all.

There are several competing bills which have also been proposed. Those bills seek more severe criminal penalties against the computer hackers and those who conceal security breaches. Unfortunately, the hackers who cause the mayhem are seldom caught and prosecuted, hiding behind the anonymity of the internet and remote areas where U.S. law enforcement has little or no reach.

Some States have no statutes that protect the individual consumer, letting claimants rely on common law causes of action. This bill would potentially strip consumers from even those tools to recover against a company like Target.

NCAA Loses Another Battle In O'Bannon Lawsuit

The NCAA has lost an appeal in the O'Bannon likeness lawsuit. Players in the suit settled their claims against EA Sports and Collegiate Licensing Company (CLC). EA Sports is the video game designer and producer of the extremely popular college football games and CLC is the company that licenses and trademarks college marks and promotes those marks. The NCAA sought relief from the United States Supreme Court over the settlement. The NCAA wanted to intervene in the settlement to derail the agreement, but the Supreme Court denied the NCAA's request. For more information, see the links below:

http://msn.foxsports.com/collegefootball/story/Supreme-Court-rejects-NCAA-bid-to-halt-EA-Sports-settlement-011514?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Foxsports%2Frss%2FCFB+(FOXSports.com+News+for+COLLEGE+FOOTBALL)

http://www.cbssports.com/general/eye-on-sports/24408975/supreme-court-denies-ncaas-attempt-to-halt-likeness-settlement-