It was less than a week after DePuy issued a recall of its ASR hip replacement device that victims began filing legal claims. On Monday, August 30th, plaintiffs in Arizona, California, Illinois, and Virginia started the first post-recall lawsuits against DePuy, alleging that the ASR implant was defective and failed, which caused the plaintiffs to suffer serious pain and required them to undergo revision surgery to fix the harm caused by the device’s failure. Since then, more lawsuits have flooded in, alleging—among other things—that DePuy did not adequately test and research its ASR devices prior to bringing them to market and hesitated issuing a recall when it knew the product was harmful to recipients.
In December, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) approved the consolidation of all the ASR lawsuits into one multidistrict litigation (MDL). MDL is a federal legal procedure, employed in the interest of efficiency, to consolidate the pre-trial procedures in cases involving similar issues and a common defendant.
The JPML assigned the MDL to Judge David A. Katz, an experienced transferee judge who presides over the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. According to the JPML, “Centralization…in the Northern District of Ohio will serve the convenience of parties and witnesses and promote the just and efficient conduct of the litigation.” Additionally the JPML stated that, “Centralization…will eliminate duplicative discovery, prevent inconsistent pretrial rulings on discovery and other issues, and conserve the resources of the parties, their counsel, and the judiciary.”
At the initial status hearing in April, Judge Katz ordered short-form complaints to be filed, laying out the parties’ claims. One recent development could have serious repercussions for DePuy, however. According to reports, the FDA has ordered manufacturers of metal-on-metal hip replacement devices like the ASR to conduct a thorough study of the alleged connection between such devices and the development of metal toxicity. Should the results of that study come back with further evidence of the ASR’s propensity to harm recipients, it could alter the entire character of the litigation. Plaintiffs will be closely following the progression of that study.
Though litigation is still in its early stages, it is progressing efficiently and plaintiffs must act quickly to ensure that their legal rights will be protected. Step one is speaking to an experienced products liability attorney that can advise you and guide you through every step of your DePuy ASR lawsuit. For a free consultation with an attorney from the Rottenstein Law Group, a group of attorneys with a collective 25 years of experience helping clients just like you, please fill out this brief contact form.