DePuy ASR Injury, Replacement and Metallosis Hip Lawsuit Trials

As a Dallas DePuy ASR and Pinnacle recall and injury attorney, I am providing this trial update involving the metal on metal hips. The first DePuy ASR defective hip and injury case is set to begin tomorrow in the Los Angeles Superior Court brought by Loren and Sheryl Kransky. Since Loren is suffering from terminal cancer, this trial was been placed on a expedited fast track. This is the first case to go to trial and is eagerly being followed by plaintiff attorneys and their clients. A plaintiff win and successful jury verdict could have serious repercussions for DePuy and its parent, Johnson and Johnson.

A second DePuy ASR case is set for trial to in February in Illinois state court in Chicago, and with the first federal lawsuit is scheduled to begin in May in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio.

Federal DePuy ASR MDL Consolidation and Centralized Litigation

All federal DePuy ASR hip implant lawsuits have been centralized for pretrial proceedings as part of an MDL, or multidistrict litigation, in the Nothern District of Ohio. If Johnson & Johnson does not settle the DePuy ASR lawsuits after bellwether trials, then the court may return or remand the hip injury cases back to the federal courts where they were originally filed for separate trial dates.

FDA and Medical Concerns Over All Metal-on-Metal Hip Replacements

The FDA launched an investigation into the safety of metal-on-metal hips in May 2011, and an independent advisory panel in June 2012 found that there was little or no benefit by using the metal-on-metal hip design, when compared with older hip implants made out of plastic or ceramic components.

The FDA issued an updated safety communication last week, providing doctors with new guidance on the risk of tissue damage that may occur from the use of metal-on-metal hip components. Many injured patients have filed hip injury and replacement lawsuits after developing similar medical problems with other metal-on-metal implants, including the DePuy Pinnacle hip, Stryker Rejuvenate, metal on metal Smith and Nephew hips, Biomet M2A-Magnum hip and Wright Conserve hip.

DePuy Pinnacle MDL Consolidation and Lawsuits

The number of product liability lawsuits filed over the DePuy Pinnacle hip system have passed the 3,000 mark, and are currently consolidated and centralized in the federal multidistrict litigation (MDL) established for all pretrial proceedings. The DePuy Pinnacle model, is an older version of the metal-on-metal hip system that has also been associated with reports of early failure, resulting in the need for revision surgery to have the implant removed. A DePuy Pinnacle recall has not been announced, and many injured patients are unaware that the hip problems may be related to the defected design of the metal on metal hip device.

Update of the DePuy Pinnacle Hip Litigation

All DePuy Pinnacle federal lawsuits have been consolidated as part of an MDL, in the Northern District of Texas. The first DePuy Pinnacle hip lawsuits are expected to be ready for trial by September 1, 2014. The lawsuits allege that the DePuy Pinnacle Acetabular Cup System was defectively designed and manufactured, and that there were insufficient warnings about the risk of problems.

The DePuy ASR is a chromium and cobalt all-metal hip design, injury problems with the DePuy ASR hip occur as metal particles are released into the body when the metal parts grind against each other. This results in metal blood poisoning or metallosis, which increases the risk of the device loosening or failing, according to lawsuit allegations.

Read more here about the serious problems with metal on metal hips, the DePuy ASR and DePuy Pinnacle metal hip devices.