Pinnacle Hip Litigation Consolidated in Texas

The consolidation of DePuy Pinnacle hip implant litigation in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas is an important step towards sending these cases to trial. Multidistrict litigation is a process which combines similar cases for pretrial litigation but, unlike class action, after the pretrial process is completed the cases can be sent back, or remanded, to the courts from which they originated. Once cases are remanded they will be dealt with in the courts in which they were filed. Experienced DePuy hip lawyers are hopeful about future cases.

Problems with Pinnacle devices started to be reported years ago. The hip replacement system is a metal-on-metal device, and some medical experts believe that metal-on-metal joint replacement systems are fundamentally flawed because they allow the two metal components to scrape against one another, which can cause shreds of metal to flake off into a patient’s bloodstream. This in turn can cause a certain kind of metal poisoning, called metallosis, that can cause swelling, inflammation, and pain in an affected joint. Sometimes this condition – and other DePuy hip complications often associated with the Pinnacle device – can be serious enough to necessitate hip revision surgery, a second surgical procedure intended to solve problems associated with the initial implant.

The problem with hip revision surgery is that not only is it risky, it comes with an extended recovery time – and it isn’t cheap. Many patients who are filing DePuy lawsuits are looking for settlements that can help them cover the costs associated with revision surgery, as well as other medical treatments and wages they may have lost if they had to take time off of work to deal with hip implant complications.
A similar device to the Pinnacle system, the DePuy ASR hip replacement system, was recalled last year by the Food and Drug Administration. The similarities between the DePuy ASR and the DePuy Pinnacle are so great that one of the major reasons the ASR was approved by the Food and Drug Administration was due to the apparent safety of the Pinnacle device. Now that it has become clear that the Pinnacle is not as safe as was originally assumed, a Pinnacle recall may not be far behind. In any case, the ASR recall is likely to help those negatively affected by the DePuy Pinnacle device, as well.