DALLAS, Texas – DePuy Orthopedics parent company Johnson & Johnson was found not liable by a jury in Dallas, Texas, in the first case to go to trial over whether Pinnacle hip implants were defective, Reuters reported Thursday. The federal jury ruled unanimously against plaintiff Kathleen Herlihy-Paoli, after two days of deliberation following a seven-week trial. Herlihy-Paoli said in her 2012 lawsuit that the two metal-on-metal Pinnacle hips she received in 2009 were faulty and that the company failed to warn patients and doctors about the device’s risks, according to the report. DePuy argued the implants were not properly positioned and were not to blame for her injuries. DePuy stopped selling the metal-on-metal Pinnacle implants last year. Also last year, the company agreed to a $2.5 billion settlement of over 7,000 lawsuits over its ASR device, which it recalled in 2010. Lawyers representing more than 6,600 lawsuits over Pinnacle hips picked Herlihy-Paoli’s suit as one of the first to go to trial. Federal District Court Judge Ed Kinkeade will next hear the rest of the consolidated lawsuits.
