By: Austin Kirk | Published: June 25th, 2014
As hundreds of Coloplast mesh
lawsuits continue to move forward through the federal court system,
the parties are continuing to make progress in settlement negotiations to
resolve the litigation, according to a recent court update.
Coloplast Corp. currently faces
nearly 1,500 federal transvaginal
mesh and bladder sling lawsuits, which have all been consolidated for
pretrial proceedings before U.S. District Judge Joseph R. Goodwin in the
Southern District of West Virginia as part of an MDL, or multidistrict
litigation.
All of the complaints involve similar allegations that women suffered
severe and debilitating complications after receiving Coloplast mesh for
surgical repair of pelvic
organ prolapse (POP) or female stress urinary incontinence (SUI), where the
mesh eroded through the vagina, caused infections or other injury.
According to a pretrial order
(PDF) issued by Judge Goodwin on June 16, “substantial progress” has
been made toward settling the Coloplast cases and a follow up status conference has been scheduled for
August 7, at which time the parties will meet with Judge Goodwin in
chambers to provide an updated report.
In March, it was reported that a Coloplast mesh
settlement was reached to resolve about 400 cases for $16 million.
In addition to lawsuits against Coloplast, Judge Goodwin is also
presiding over thousands of similar cases brought against manufacturers of
other transvaginal mesh products, including C.R. Bard, American Medical Systems
(AMS), Ethicon, Boston Scientific, Cook Medical and Neomedic.
Endo Health Systems reported last month that it has agreed to pay $830 million to
settle AMS mesh lawsuits brought by about 22,000 women, making it
the largest settlement reported to date in the litigation.
C.R. Bard has also reached a number of individual settlements involving
cases that were scheduled to come up for trial, but no global settlement
agreement has been reached.
Vaginal Mesh Litigation Update
According to the latest case list
(PDF) released by the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict
Litigation (JPML) on June 16, Judge Goodwin is currently presiding over 17,812 AMS mesh lawsuits,
18,176 Ethicon mesh
lawsuits, 12,004 Boston
Scientific mesh lawsuits, 8,555 Bard Avaulta mesh lawsuits,
1,468 Coloplast mesh
lawsuits, 195 Cook Medical
mesh lawsuits and about 52 Neomedic mesh
lawsuits.
The combined total
of 58,262 vaginal mesh claims pending in the federal court system
represents a nearly 35% increase in the number of cases pending since March
2014, when the U.S. JPML reported that a combined total of 43,173 cases were
centralized before Judge Goodwin. In addition, thousands of other cases are pending in various state
court systems throughout the country.
As part of the coordinated pretrial proceedings in federal court, Judge
Goodwin has scheduled a series of early trial dates involving several of the
manufacturers. Known as “bellwether”
cases, such test trials are designed to help the parties gauge how
juries may respond to certain evidence and testimony that may be repeated
throughout the litigation.
In August, a trial involving a lawsuit filed against Ethicon by Jo
Huskey is scheduled to go before a federal jury. Huskey alleges that she
suffered injuries after receiving an Ethicon TVT-O bladder sling for stress
urinary incontinence.
Later this year, a combined trial
involving 11 Boston Scientific mesh cases is set to go before a
jury starting in October 2014. That case involves women who experienced
problems after receiving a Boston Scientific Obtryx sling for repair of stress
urinary incontinence.
Last year, a series of three Bard Avaulta trials were set for trial in
the MDL, with the first case going before a federal jury in July 2013,
involving a lawsuit filed by Donna Cisson. That trial resulted in a $2 million
damage award against Bard, including punitive damages designed
to punish the company for the actions during the manufacture and sale of the
product. The second and third trials were each settled shortly before they were
set to begin, with terms of the deals withheld.
Given the lack of progress
towards settling additional cases by some manufacturers, Judge Goodwin recently
ordered that a second wave of Bard Avaulta cases and Boston Scientific mesh
cases be prepared for trial, with hundreds of cases going through case-specific
discovery over the remainder of this year so that they can be trial-ready by
early 2015.
If the manufacturers fail to reach vaginal mesh
settlements to resolve the majority of cases against them, they
could face hundreds of individual trial dates scheduled throughout the country
next year.
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