Product Liability Lawyer Blog

July 29, 2016

J&J Seeks Expedited Appeal for $151M Pinnacle Verdict

Johnson & Johnson lost a $500 million federal case in Texas earlier this year involving its Pinnacle hip replacement devices. However, the company won an important victory recently when the U.S. District judge overseeing the case slashed that damage award to $151 million, finding the punitive damage award excessive.

The verdict had been in favor of five plaintiffs and three spouses, who after a two month trial were collectively were supposed to receive $360 million in punitive damages and $140 million in compensatory damages.

Although the judge denied the company’s request to set aside the verdict or grant a new trial, the medical product behemoth is now seeking an expedited review of the verdict. The company has argued that jurors were improperly biased after hearing evidence that was both irrelevant and unfair during the trial. Attorneys for plaintiffs, however, say the bid for a new trial is nothing more than a flimsy attempt to snag a “do-over” after the strategy they employed during trial went awry. Continue reading

July 26, 2016

$8 Million Award for Defective DePuy Hip Affirmed

by Jeffrey S. Glassman

A man’s $8 million damage award for a defective hip has survived an appeal before the 4th District Court of Appeal. The trial was the first of thousands of product liability claims filed over the ASR hip device.

Plaintiff alleged that the device failed just 5 years after the surgery, despite promises that it was supposed to last most if not all the rest of his lifetime.

The case was Kransky v. DePuy, and expert witnesses, including a biomedical engineer, testified in the case that internal data from the company showed these hips started to deform and change shape in just one year’s worth of walking in the human body. This high rate of deformity was known to those in the company, who ignored this reported “red flag.” Continue reading

July 23, 2016

Massive Recall on Frozen Appetizers over E. coli Fears

by Jeffrey S. Glassman

According to a recent news feature from Food Safety News, over 22 tons of frozen appetizers (marketed as Kabob’s Hors d’oeuvres) have been recalled to due a recent outbreak of E. coli bacterial illness. There are many different products this company manufactures that are sold to restaurants and big box retailers and discount warehouses. There are dozens of different varieties of recalled products, including mini pizzas, spring rolls, pot stickers, and many other similar frozen appetizers that are not shipped ready to eat, as they do require cooking.

The problem did not come from the factory where the frozen food products were manufactured, but rather it was from the flour manufactured by General Mills, Inc. and shipped to this company for use in their food products. As soon as the flour company notified them of the potential for E. coli contamination, the company voluntarily recalled any product that used that flour to avoid any injury. Continue reading

July 20, 2016

New Study on Outcomes of Different Hip Replacement Procedures

by Jeffrey S. Glassman

There are a variety of ways a total hip replacement surgery can be performed these days. While every procedure ultimately involves making an incision and removing the patient’s deteriorating hip and replacing it with an artificial device, some doctors will make an anterior incision, some will cut along the side, some will cut through the muscle, while others will move the muscle. There is now a special table that doctors can use to give them better access to the site of procedure, and in some cases, doctors will use computers to make the map the site and even robots to perform the actual surgery.

While the proponents of every one of these techniques obviously claims that their procedure is the best, a recent report outlined in News Medical looks at the results following various techniques to see which one actually has better results in the various cases. Continue reading

July 17, 2016

Improving Chance of Successful Total Knee Replacement

by Jeffrey S. Glassman

In the past two decades, the number of patients undergoing a total knee replacement procedure each year has gone up considerably. As the number of surgeries has increased, there have been many advancements in the techniques used by surgeons to perform the total knee replacements. The recovery time, too, has lessened and the chance of success has increased.

According to a recent news feature from ABC, there are certain things that can be done to increase the chances of success even more, so as to avoid the chance that the device will fail after the procedure to the greatest extent possible. Continue reading

July 15, 2016

J&J Fires Back on Pelvic Mesh Marketing Lawsuit

by Jeffrey S. Glassman

In California, the state attorney general recently announced her office would be pursuing legal action against drug manufacturer Johnson & Johnson for its alleged false advertising and deceptive marketing of its vaginal mesh products.

Now, Johnson & Johnson has fired back on those claims,with a spokeswoman telling Legal Newsline that the decision to sue the company was not just, and that the company has no plans to settle the case. Instead, it plans to fight the allegations vigorously.

Of course, it likely has no choice. To concede that it deceptively marketed or falsely advertised would be to put ammunition in the hands of thousands of plaintiffs who are still waiting for their day in court with the medical product manufacturer. Continue reading

July 12, 2016

Tarceva Makers to Pay $67M for False Claims

by Jeffrey S. Glassman

Two drug companies have been ordered to pay $67 million over false claims made regarding the efficacy of cancer drug Tarceva, the U.S. Justice Department announced.

The drug is approved for some patients who suffer from non-small cell lung cancer or pancreatic cancer. However, OSI Pharmaceuticals LLC and Genetech Inc. reportedly misled consumers about how effective the drug was in treating non-small cell lung cancer.

This settlement was reached after allegations that between January 2006 and December 2011, the two drug makers promised the product would be effective for non-small cell lung cancer patients. What they failed to disclose was that research had shown it only worked if the patients hadn’t ever smoked or had any sort of mutation in their epidermal growth factor receptor. The latter is a protein that has been traced to the spread of cancerous cells. Continue reading

July 10, 2016

$70M Verdict for Male Risperdal Patient Who Grew Breasts

by Jeffrey S. Glassman

Johnson & Johnson has been ordered to pay $70 million to a male teen whose use of antipsychotic drug Risperdal caused him to grow breasts.

The verdict was handed down in a state court in Pennsylvania, after jurors concluded the drug-making giant failed to disclose that its product could cause gynecomastia, the unnatural growth of large mammary glands in males. Not only that, jurors concluded, but the company actively and with intent destroyed, falsified or hid records that pointed to this fact.

This $70 million damage award interestingly only includes compensatory damages, as opposed to punitive damages. It also is significantly more than the $2.5 million awarded to an Alabama teen in 2015 who developed size 46 DD breasts. Continue reading

July 7, 2016

Plaintiff: Johnson & Johnson Used Deadly Bone Cement for Unapproved Use on Patients

by Jeffrey S. Glassman

Trial is underway in one of the first lawsuits heard by a jury regarding drug manufacturer Johnson & Johnson’s subsidiary Synthes Inc. using a type of bone cement absent FDA approval on the spines of patients who later died in surgery, just moments after they were injected with the compound.

The wrongful death lawsuit, filed in a Washington state court, focuses on the intentional off-label use of the bone cement which was known to be risky. What should have been a routine procedure to treat back pain for a 67-year-old patient in 2007 ended up killing her. Patient’s family sued Synthes, the surgeon and the hospital for use of the bone cement, known as Norian, even though it wasn’t approved for use in back pain surgery.

Many are closely watching the development of this case, making it high-stakes not just for the parties involved but for future plaintiffs as well. It’s being covered by Courtroom View Network (CVN). Plaintiffs allege the manufacturer marketed Norian for use in spinal surgeries, despite a company physician characterizing such use as akin to “human experimentation.” Continue reading

July 5, 2016

New Table Helps Surgeons Perform Total Hip Replacement

by Jeffrey S. Glassman

There have been a lot of advances in the total hip replacement surgery process over the past decade. Much of that has focused on the development of new artificial hip joints as well as computer aided methods of performing the operation. There have also been improvements in the cutting guides surgeons use to know where to make the cuts and align the device.

A cutting guide is similar to a carpenter’s jig and allows the surgeon to make as precise as possible cut in the patients existing joint and bone to allow for a proper tight fit for the new artificial joint. The better the new joint matches up, the less of a chance there will be any complications later on. Continue reading