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After a slow start in returning to the courtroom following Covid closures, the latest product liability trial over hernia mesh has suffered another setback.
Pensacola resident Antonio Milanesi was scheduled for trial on January 10th, before Judge Edmund Sargus in the Southern District Court of Ohio.
Mesh News Desk has learned that the co-lead counsel for the defense tore his bicep and had emergency surgery. Judge Sargus delayed the trial for two months.
The Milanesi lawsuit (2:18-cv-01320) is the second bellwether trial selected among 14,295 filed in the Ohio multidistrict litigation against Bard and another 14,000 in state court in Rhode Island.
This case is a plaintiff pick and the first For Ventralex, just one of the family of hernia meshes made by Bard.
Ventralex
Bards’ hernia mesh in question is the Ventralex Hernia Patch. Cleared by the FDA through its 510(k) process on July 16, 2002, Bard claimed the Ventralex was the “substantially equivalent” to the Bard Composix Kugel Mesh Patch because it continued the same memory recoil ring.
Bard settled 2,600 Kugel defective product cases for $184 million in 2013.
It is multi-layered polypropylene and expanded polytetrafluoroethylene (ePTFE), a thermoplastic polymer, on one side intended to face the intestines in the intra-abdominal space, so it does not adhere to the body.
Mr. Milanesi
Mr. Milanesi had the Ventralex Hernia Patch mesh implanted July 11, 2007, at Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola. He claims he was not informed of the known complications and risks associated with Ventralex and that his surgeon, Dr. Karanbir Gill was not informed either.
Ten years later, on May 26, 2017, Mr. Milanesi had another surgery to remove the infected Ventralex and a small bowel fistula. The surgeon noted a loop of small bowel was densely attached to the mesh.
The small bowel had experienced an erosion involving a portion of the mesh. The surgeon had to resect the small bowel, remove the bowel fistula, and infected hernia mesh. Mr. Milanesi claims he is severely and permanently injured as a result.
