J&J's DePuy Hit With $1 Bill+ on Defective Metal Hips

No doubt, J&J execs are shaking their heads over the latest setback to their medical device division.

It might be a new record.

Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiary DePuy Orthopaedics has been hit with more than $1 billion in damages to be paid to six plaintiffs injured by their Pinnacle hip implant. The jurors found the metal-on-metal Pinnacle was defective designed and that warnings to consumers and doctors were not adequate.

Plaintiffs claim their bone erosion and tissue death are due to design flaws of the Pinnacle even though it was promoted as being an improved design over plastic or ceramic hips.

J&J and DePuy deny any wrongdoing.

Attorney Mark Lanier, headed the plaintiffs group, which made an offer of $1.8 million to settle prior to trial. J&J rejected that offer.

The total of $1.041 billion includes $32 million in compensatory damages including pain and suffering. The remainder were punitive damages.

J&J is facing more than 8,400 lawsuits claiming Pinnacle hip prosthesis is defective in its design and instructions and the cases are consolidated in Texas federal court where bellwether cases are being readied for trial.

The second trial yielded a $500 million verdict while J&J faced no liability in the first trial in 2014.

J&J plans to ask the appeals court to stop any further trials over Pinnacle, reports Reuters.

This is not the first defective metal hip prosthesis. J&J and DePuy had to pay $2.5 billion over its ASR metal-on-metal hip implants, which were were called in 2010.

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LEARN MORE:

MND, March 2013 ~ $8.3 Million Verdict over ASR Metal Hip
https://www.meshmedicaldevicenewsdesk.com/8-3-million-verdict-against-jjs-depuy-unit-over-asr-metal-hip/

MND, June 20, 2012 ~ FDA Expert Panel Weights in on Metal Hips
https://www.meshmedicaldevicenewsdesk.com/coming-up-fda-expert-panel-weighs-in-on-metal-hips/

MND, March 5, 2012 ~ Howard Sadwin’s Story of Metal-on-Metal Hip Failure
https://www.meshmedicaldevicenewsdesk.com/suffering-in-silence-howard-sadwins-story-of-metal-on-metal-hip-failure/