MDL DePuy Court Cases Delayed for Two More Weeks

The start of the MultiDistrict Litigation (MDL) DePuy court cases into the company´s faulty ASR hip replacement systems has been delayed for two more weeks.

U.S. District Judge David A. Katz rescheduled the start of the first case to be heard, which was originally due to begin on September 9th, to allow additional time for discovery and the consideration of other legal matters after the substitution of the original plaintiff – Faye Dorney-Madgitz – with Ann McCracken.

The reason for the substitution is still unclear. McCracken -v- DePuy was originally scheduled to be the second of the ‘bellwether’ court cases to be heard in a series of Federal cases which will determine how juries will respond to the relative strengths and weaknesses of each case. It is not yet known whether Dorney-Madgitz -v- DePuy is to be rescheduled at a later date or indeed heard at all.

Ann McCracken originally made her claim for DePuy injury compensation in March 2011; alleging that she received a DePuy ASR metal-on-metal hip replacement system in August 2009 which had to be removed by January 2011. The 57-year-old single mother from Rochester in New York claims that when her surgeon removed the DePuy ASR hip implant he saw evidence of metallosis which had killed healthy tissue around the implant and resulted in a painful hip dislocation.

McCracken´s case is to be decided without reference to the DePuy hip replacement recall of August 2010, after Judge Katz ruled that the injury “began with the initial implementation” and agreed with DePuy´s solicitors that, to reference the recall at trial, might deter other companies from voluntarily withdrawing potentially harmful medical devices because of the financial consequences.

Once verdicts are delivered on the first ‘bellwether´ MDL DePuy court cases – and a benchmark has been set for the value of compensation settlements –  Johnson & Johnson (DePuy Orthopaedics´ parent company) are likely to make offers of settlement for the 7,800 outstanding MDL DePuy court cases consolidated within the multidistrict litigation.

If settlements are not reached following the series of ´bellwether´ MDL DePuy court cases, the 7,800 outstanding claims will be remanded back to the U.S. District Courts where they were originally filed to be heard individually. This would have serious implications for the DePuy court cases in Ireland, where notice of cases has been served against Johnson & Johnson, DePuy Orthopaedics and the Health Service Executive.