Young Arizona Woman Joins DePuy Litigation

A 21-year-old Tucson, Arizona woman has become one of the youngest plaintiffs to become involved in the ongoing DePuy hip multidistrict litigation centered in Ohio. Cassandra Eubanks filed her DePuy hip lawsuit on January 10, 2012, after experiencing pain and DePuy hip complications as a result of her DePuy hip implant. Eubanks, who received her implant when she was only 15, allegedly experienced pain in her groin, right hip, and lateral hip area radiating down her thigh after the device was implanted in her right hip. 

The lawsuit filed by Eubanks' DePuy hip lawyer also claims that Eubanks experienced increased heavy metals, including chromium and cobalt, in her bloodstream. Like many plaintiffs involved in DePuy lawsuits, she was forced to undergo revision surgery in 2011 to have the device removed. The lawsuit filed by her DePuy hip lawyer alleges that the injuries she suffered were directly correlated to the failure of her right hip implant.

Metallosis, Major Side-Effect of DePuy Hip Failure

Metal-on-metal hip implants, like the DePuy Hip Recall and DePuy Pinnacle hip, have been linked to metal poisoning or metallosis, which could cause serious problems with the hip replacement. Symptoms often involve the development of pain, inflammation and difficulty walking as the metal-on-metal parts rub against each other and release debris or small metal fragments.Metallosis, or metallic poisoning, has been shown to cause the breakdownof bone marrow and white blood cells. A 2009 study in the United Kingdom of 660 DePuy Hip complications patients went further, linking metallic poisoning to problems such as vision loss, soft tissue and muscle damage, hearing loss and hip pain. 

Metallosis is characteristic of metal-on-metal or metal-on-polyethylene implants. It can lead to aseptic fibrosis, local necrosis or even help to cause metallic corrosion and increase the chances of DePuy hip failure.Approximately 1,000 patients have reported problems with their DePuy Hip Implants since 2005.  From only 2007 to 2009,

Reports Show Large Numbers of Problems with Zimmer Hip

About 1,000 people have filed a DePuy ASR hip replacement lawsuitagainst Johnson & Johnson, which could face more than $1 billion in liability for problems caused by the defective components that were recalled last year. A steady flow of complaints over DePuy hip failure and side effects of the metal hip replacement systems began to flow into courts shortly after the company issued a DePuy Hip Recall in August 2010. In addition to the DePuy ASR hip implant, various Johnson & Johnson units have issued recalls for a number of medical products, including more than 200 million bottles of over-the-counter medications for musty orders and other problems. According to The Wall Street Journal, the recalls cost the company around $900 million last year.

The company has tried to stem the tide of legal claims by offering to pay for out-of-pocket medical costs incurred by patients, but that likely represents only a small portion of the compensation they may ultimately be responsible for.After the recall was first announced, DePuy Orthopedics, Inc. attempted to get orthopedic surgeons and patients to return any of the removed hip implants to the company. They also attempted get doctors to have patients sign releases authorizing the device manufacturer to obtain copies of their medical records. DePuy Pinnacle Lawyer representing individuals who received one of the defective implants decried the move,

DePuy ASR and Pinnacle Hip Systems Raise Concerns of Metal Poisoning

Over the past five months, more than 500 lawsuits have been filed in federal court over DePuy Pinnacle hip problems, which caused individuals to experience severe pain and early failure of their artificial hip implant.In May 2011, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation ordered that every DePuy Pinnacle Lawsuit filed in any U.S. District Court throughout the country be transferred to the Northern District of Texas as part of a multidistrict litigation, or MDL. At that time, the panel identified only three cases that had been filed.To put this in perspective, another DePuy artificial hip, the DePuy ASR hip implant, had been the subject of 1,195 AERs by August 2010, when it was recalled because of an unexpectedly high early failure rate. There’s no reason to suspect that the Pinnacle hip replacement lawsuits would not surpass the ASR in number.

Early failures with the DePuy hip appear to also be related to the design of the ASR acetabular cup, which is shallower than acetabular cups made by other companies. This has made it prone to failure, loosening and other DePuy Hip complications. Design problems with metal-on-metal hip implants, and particularly the DePuy ASR hip and DePuy Pinnacle,

Weighing Benefits of DePuy Class Action Lawsuit or MDL

A panel of judges has ordered that all federal lawsuits over problems with DePuy’s ASR and Pinnacle hip transplant models will be consolidated into an MDL, or multidistrict litigation, for pretrial proceedings in the Southern District of Illinois. Many people equate this with a DePuy class action, but each Depuy Hip Lawsuit will remain an individual claim and if a settlement is not agreed upon during pretrial litigation, each plaintiff will still have a jury will determine the amount of damages they are entitled to in their case. The difference between a DePuy MDL and a DePuy class action is that those in a class action, while still retaining the ability to have their trial based on the shared damages suffered, individuals lose some of their rights to a personal lawsuit.

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Shortly after the DePuy ASR Lawsuit was introduced in 2005, reports of complications and failures began to surface early after the implant. According to Adverse Event Reports received by the FDA, there were nearly 100 reports in 2007, over 200 in 2008 and over 300 in 2009. The vast majority of these reports (over 90% of those reported in 2009) involved the need for a DePuy hip revision surgery after a DePuy ASR hip replacement.

DePuy Hip Recall Lawyers Prepared to Fight

Stephen Axelberg is a patient of the DePuy ASR hip replacement system. Mr Axelberg, from Georgia, recently filed a Depuy Hip Lawsuit against DePuy—a subsidiary of parent company Johnson & Johnson—because of the complications he has experienced as a result of his ASR hip replacement system. He is far from alone in this, however – many patients have experienced DePuy Hip failure and other problems with their hip replacement systems, and DePuy even went so far as to voluntarily recall the product in August of last year. 

Axelberg’s lawsuit claims that DePuy knew of the risks associated with their ASR hip replacement system as early as 2008, as admitted by one of the designers of the ASR hip device, Dr. Thomas Schmalzried. However, DePuy did not admit anything about the potential for side effects until early 2010, and DePuy Hip Recall the device only a few months later.

DePuy Hip Recall News: Multidistrict Litigation

One of the many steps taken towards resolving the vast number of DePuy hip revision surgery system lawsuits that have been gathering in courts across the country the cases have been combined in federal multidistrict litigation. Multidistrict litigation is a process that combines the pretrial processes in similar cases in order for these processes—which can include research, discovery, and other information that must be uncovered before a trial can begin—to be completed faster, speeding up the entire litigation process. This will help speed up the litigation process, which can often take years especially in personal injury cases, and can help plaintiffs bring home damages more quickly so they can get their lives back on track. After pretrial processes and bellwether trials are completed, the remainder of the trials may be sent back, or remanded, back to the courts from which DePuy Pinnacle Lawsuit originated.

One of the cases that is about to join DePuy multidistrict litigation is that of Michael Schaff, who filed his lawsuit in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois for  DePuy hip complications.