J&J Considering $3B Payment To Settle Hip Implant Suits
Posted
Jordan Fouts-
DePuy parent company Johnson & Johnson is considering a $3 billion-plus payment to settle thousands of pending hip implant lawsuits, Bloomberg reported Wednesday. J&J would pay more than $300,000 per case to resolve as many as 11,500 lawsuits, according to Bloomberg, which cited “five people familiar with the matter” who aren’t authorized to make negotiations public. Any agreement would depend on the results of seven product-liability trials set to occur between September and January, according to the report. The company is said to be seeking to resolve the cases in the U.S. by early next year. Globally, DePuy recalled more than 90,000 ASR implants in 2010, with 37,000 of those in the U.S., after more than 12 percent failed within five years. J&J has spent about $993 million on medical costs and informing patients and surgeons about the recall, according to Bloomberg, citing a DePuy spokeswoman. J&J set aside an undisclosed amount for litigation, which it increased before June 30, the spokeswoman said. J&J lost its first trial over the ASR device in a California jury trial in March, and won the second in a Chicago jury trial weeks later. Seven other lawsuits from plaintiffs blaming the ASR hips for injuries will go to trial in the coming months. The first is set to begin Sept. 9 in federal court in Cleveland. That judge is overseeing a consolidation of about 8,000 federal cases; another 2,000 cases are pending before a California judge. State courts are also set to oversee trials in California and New Jersey in October and January, Florida in November and Illinois in December, says Bloomberg.
