Bard hit for $4M in first IVC Filter Injury Trial. Last week an Arizona federal jury awarded Sherr-Una Booker $2 million in compensatory damages and $2 million in punitive damages in the first bellwether C.R. Bard IVC filter lawsuit to go to trial. Bard was found to be 80 percent liable and must pay $3.6 million.
The first bellwether trial in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona began on March 13. The judge limited plaintiff Sherr-Una Booker’s claims to defective design, failure to warn, and punitive damages.
Over 3,500 Bard IVC Filter claims
The 3,500 plaintiffs consolidated in the C.R. Bard MDL litigation have waited several years for this day to arrive. Since August 2015, all personal injury and product liability lawsuits filed throughout the federal court system over injuries from the Bard IVC filters have been centralized before U.S. District Judge David Campbell in the District of Arizona as part of an MDL, or multidistrict litigation.
C.R. Bard, Cook Medical, and Cordis are the main IVC manufacturers facing IVC filter lawsuits, Cook is exposed to 3,750 IVC filter lawsuits in a separate MDL based in Indiana.
What is an IVC filter?
IVC filters known as inferior vena cava filters are umbrella-like devices placed in the inferior vena cava to prevent blood clots in the leg from traveling to the heart, lungs and in some cases the brain, causing severe injuries.
Blood thinners or anticoagulants are the front line treatment of leg blood clots. But in some patients blood thinners are contra-indicated for example if a patient has a pre-existing bleeding problem and so the IVC filter was designed to be fixed in the inferior vena cava to block a migrating blood clot, preventing it from traveling to vital organs where it could do the most damage.
IVC filters are meant to be temporarily implanted, designed to be removed once the risk of the blood clot has passed. In reality, the majority of retrievable IVC filters are either never retrieved, or retrieved after the retrieval window time-period recommended by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has passed.
Some cannot be retrieved at all, because of the filter embedment causing severe injury risk to the patient. In several instances, the IVC filter has been found to embedded and perforating the wall of the inferior vena cava, tilting or breaking free from the insertion point and migrating to the heart and lungs. The spider-like struts of the IVC filter have been found to snap off and embolize or migrate, into vital organs.
IVC Filter Injury Lawsuits
If you think you may have a Bard Recovery, G2, Cook Celect, Gunther Tulip, Cordis Optease, Trapease IVC Filter implanted and have suffered IVC filter failure or injuries by embedment, migration or embolization requiring emergency care or invasive surgery, please call Dr. Shezad Malik Law Firm at 888-210-9693. Dr. Shezad Malik Law Firm is based in Dallas, Texas and is investigating and accepting IVC Filter Injury cases nationwide.
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First Bard IVC Filter Bellwether Trial set for March
