DePuy Hip Recall Hearing in Florida

A DePuy hip recall hearing took place in Florida during the first week of February 2011. At this hearing, both defense and plaintiff lawyers came close to agreeing on a protocol that would preserve dozens of defective hip implants after being removed from patients. Many of these same patients have filed a DePuy hip lawsuit.
One of the several attorneys for the plaintiffs stated for Bloomberg News: “We hope to come to an agreement on what sort of testing will be done, how it will be done, and what the shipping requirements will be to send the explants from the hospitals to their testing lab or our testing lab.”

DePuy Hip Lawsuits Hinge on Recalled Explants

DePuy Orthopaedics is a subsidiary of corporate giant Johnson & Johnson. In August 2010, DePuy recalled 90,000 of its ASR hip implants after finding that 12 to 13 percent of patients experienced hip implant failure within 5 years. This caused serious hip complications that brought great pain and suffering to the affected patients. Studies conducted more recently have found the failure rate to be closer to 50 percent within 6 years of receiving the implant. These metal-on-metal hip implant devices were designed to function safely for a minimum of 15 years.
Since the recall was announced, lawyers have vocalized concerns about DePuy’s efforts to collect the implants after removal as part of hip revision surgery. This constitutes taking valuable evidence away from patients who may have grounds for filing a DePuy hip lawsuit.
One plaintiff has filed a DePuy hip lawsuit against the device manufacturer, alleging that the company tried to deceive plaintiffs so that they would surrender evidence that could be used against the defendant in court.
On the other side, DePuy does have legitimate reasons for wanting to keep the explants. The manufacturer must determine how and why the devices failed after it had spent millions of dollars on research and development of the implants. Performing tests on removed hip implants is a vital part of determining what caused the high failure rates.
An attorney for Johnson & Johnson made this statement to U.S. District Judge David Katz at the February DePuy hip recall hearing in Florida: “We are committed to working out a protocol that both sides will agree to.”
At the same hearing, the hundreds of DePuy hip lawsuits filed in state courts were also under discussion. Judge Katz showed interest in centralizing a significant portion of these lawsuits together with the consolidated federal lawsuits he is currently overseeing. The following DePuy hip recall hearing was scheduled to take place in Florida later that same month.