Johnson & Johnson was ordered to pay $502 million to 5 patients who sued the company for allegedly hiding flaws in its Pinnacle hip implants that caused them to fail, requiring revision surgery. Pinnacle is sold by DePuy, a J&J company.
The trial lasted about eight weeks, with the jury deliberating for 4 days.
The trial resulted in findings of the following:
- The Pinnacle artificial hip product implanted in the 5 patients was defective;
- J&J knew the product was defective but did not warn of the flaws.
The $502 million verdict included $142 million in compensatory (actual) damages and $360 million in punitive damages, an amount meant to punish for bad behavior.
Attorney David Szerlag is representing clients in other lawsuits against J&J’s DePuy for failed Pinnacle hip implants. Trials like this can prompt a company to settle additional cases. There are thousands of lawsuits pending in multidistrict litigation, which is like a class action, but only pretrial procedures are consolidated (IN RE: DePuy Orthopaedics, Inc., Pinnacle Hip Implant Products Liability Litigation 3:11-md-02244).
The 5 patients had gotten Pinnacle Ultamet metal-on-metal hip products implanted. Lawyers for the patients argued that these DePuy hips caused metallosis (metal poisoning) by leaching cobalt and chromium.
The metallosis caused the Pinnacle implants to fail, and the 5 patients had to have revision surgery, a procedure to remove the Pinnacle implant and replace it with another product.
The case is In re:DePuy Orthopaedics Inc. Pinacle Hip Implant Products Liability Litigation, 11-md-02244, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Texas (Dallas). Our law firm is representing clients in MDL 2244, not the patients involved in this specific lawsuit.