Jury Awards Plaintiff $100 Million in Boston Scientific Pelvic Mesh Trial
May 28th, 2015 | By Jane Akre (FiDA highlight)
$100 million in damages.
That is the amount a Delaware jury today awarded to mesh injured woman Deborah Barba. The amount includes $25 million in compensatory and $75 million in punitive damages, established to send a message to the company.
The 51-year-old from Newark, Delaware, sued manufacturer Boston Scientific for her permanent and serious injuries caused by the company’s Advantage Fit and Pinnacle transvaginal meshes. She was implanted in 2009 and has suffered significant complications and endured two surgeries that did not fully remove the devices.
“While we are extremely pleased with this verdict and the relief we hope it will bring to the Barbas for Deborah’s unspeakable suffering, we also hope Boston Scientific and other mesh manufacturers take note of this verdict and resolve all pending cases swiftly. Deborah’s case will hopefully bring more awareness of mesh issues,s however, no woman and her loved ones should have to endure the stress of going to trial and baring their souls publicly to achieve justice,” said Barba’s attorney Fidelma Fitzpatrick of the Motley Rice law firm.
The jury found Boston Scientific was negligent in its design and manufacture of the Pinnacle and Advantage Fit devices and that the warnings were insufficient to unsuspecting doctors and their patients.
“I am thankful for the jury’s verdict and hope my story can help other women who are suffering from mesh complications to receive the resolution they deserve,” said Deborah Barba. “While difficult to share, I hope my case demonstrates to all mesh manufacturers the dangers of their products and the justice they owe victims.”
The case is Deborah Barba v. Boston Scientific Corporation, Superior Court of the State of Delaware in and for New Castle County, C.A. No. N11C-08-050 MMJ.
http://meshmedicaldevicenewsdesk.com/jury-awards-plaintiff-100-million-in-boston-scientific-pelvic-mesh-trial#comment-519041
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Boston Scientific Told to Pay $100 Million Over Mesh
Jeff Feeley, May 28, 2015 (FiDA highlight)
Boston Scientific Corp. must pay $100 million to a Delaware woman who blamed the company’s vaginal-mesh inserts for leaving her in constant pain and unable to have sex, in the first verdict after the company agreed to begin settling cases over the devices, and the biggest yet.
A state-court jury in Delaware found Thursday that Boston Scientific’s Pinnacle and Advantage Fit inserts, built to buttress sagging organs and treat incontinence in women, were defectively designed and company executives hid the flaws from Deborah Barba.
The 51-year-old former bank teller contends the inserts eroded once they were implanted, leaving her with a scarred vagina and a host of medical problems. The verdict is the largest so far against Boston Scientific over its vaginal-mesh inserts. It eclipsed a $73 million award last year to a Texas woman who blamed the company’s Obtryx sling for her injuries.
The jury also found Boston Scientific engaged in fraud by failing to alert doctors to the devices’ faulty design. It awarded $25 million in compensatory damages and hit the company with a $75 million punitive-damages award.
The vaginal-mesh verdict is also the first since Marlborough, Massachusetts-based Boston Scientific agreed last month to pay $119 million to resolve about 3,000 lawsuits over the devices in the first settlements of claims the inserts damaged women’s organs and made sexual intercourse painful.
Appeal Planned
Kelly Leadem, a Boston Scientific spokeswoman, said the company disputes the conclusion that the inserts were flawed and caused Barba’s injuries.
“We disagree with the jury’s finding and intend to appeal based on the strength of our evidence,” she said in an e-mail.
The verdict is surprising because it came in Delaware, the most corporate-friendly state in the nation, Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan’s business and law schools who teaches classes on how drugs and medical devices are developed and regulated, said by e-mail.
“Corporation-friendly Delaware juries rarely award punitive damages,” Gordon said. “A good portion of Delaware’s economy is driven by its business of domiciling most of the country’s largest corporations.”
Delaware, the corporate home to more than half of the U.S.’s publicly traded companies and 63 percent of Fortune 500 firms, had more than 1 million legal entities incorporated in the 900,000-resident state by 2012, officials said.
‘Loudly, Clearly’
“The jury spoke loudly and clearly that Boston Scientific’s defective devices injured Mrs. Barba and many other women and they should step and take responsibility for causing that harm,” said Fred Thompson, one of her lawyers.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration ordered Boston Scientific, Johnson & Johnson and more than 30 other vaginal-implant makers in 2012 to study rates of organ damage and complications linked to the devices after the companies faced a wave of lawsuits over them.
Women such as Barba allege that inserts produced by Boston Scientific and other companies are made of substandard materials and shrink once they are implanted, causing organ damage and persistent pain. J&J moved in June 2012 to pull four lines of inserts off the market.
Many of the more than 70,000 mesh-insert cases have been consolidated before U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin in Charleston, West Virginia. Others have been filed in state courts in Delaware, New Jersey, Missouri, Texas and California.
Goodwin has been pushing manufacturers to consider settling the cases before they face billions in jury awards.
Settlement Talks
Boston Scientific, C.R. Bard Inc. and other makers of vaginal inserts had talks two years ago about creating a global settlement of cases over the devices, according to people familiar with the discussions. J&J, which refused to participate in 2013 settlement talks, has now begun to settle some cases.
While Boston Scientific and Bard couldn’t agree on an overarching settlement program, both companies have begun to settle some individual suits and some lawyers’ inventories of cases.
Boston Scientific agreed to pay the $119 million to resolve nearly 3,000 cases collected by a group of plaintiffs’ lawyers led by Houston litigator David Matthews in April. The settlement provided an average payout of about $40,000 per case.
The Delaware case is Barba v. Boston Scientific Corp., CA No. 11C-08-050-MMJ, Superior Court of Delaware (Wilmington).
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-28/boston-scientific-ordered-to-pay-100-million-over-vaginal-mesh
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