DePuy Lawsuits Hit Ohio Courts

The hip implant system released by DePuy Orthopaedics in 2005 didn’t undergo a clinical trial before being approved by the Food and Drug Administration, resulting in the unnecessary suffering of thousands of patients who had received the implant. Patients suffered side effects with symptoms such as pain, difficulty walking, and swelling of the affected joint, problems whose symptoms mimicked the symptoms of many of the conditions that caused them to need a hip replacement in the first place.
However, things are looking up for those who have suffered at the hands of this faulty system – many patients are looking forward to having their day in court, as the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation ordered that this lawsuit be overseen by a single court in Ohio, presided over by Judge David Katz. This allows plaintiffs with similar complaints to see their respective trials consolidated in one place and streamlined for faster transit through the judicial system. This could potentially net victims hundreds of millions of dollars in DePuy settlement money to cover such expenses as pain and suffering and out-of-pocket healthcare costs.
In a similar case of a faulty artificial joint that was taken to court, Swiss manufacturer Sulzer had been receiving complaints about hip and knee implants that they had been manufacturing. The implants were deemed defective and Sulzer agreed to pay a $1 billion settlement to the victims of injury from the implants. Plaintiffs in the DePuy lawsuit are hoping that this outcome is mirrored in their case.
DePuy has already admitted that they are at fault to some degree for putting their hip replacement system on the market; they recalled some of their implant systems after studies revealed that 12 percent of the recipients of the implant required a hip revision surgery to correct the problems caused by the implant.