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 (Reuters) - A lawyer for a Montana woman on Tuesday urged jurors in
a U.S. court to find Johnson & Johnson's DePuy Orthopedics unit
liable for failing to warn patients that metal-on-metal Pinnacle hip
implants were defective at the close of the first trial over the
device.
During the seven-week trial in Dallas, lawyers for Kathleen Herlihy-Paoli
accused the company of concealing the safety risks of the
metal-on-metal Pinnacle hip implants she received in 2009. They said
the company failed to warn doctors and patients that the device
could shed metal ions into the bloodstream, infecting surrounding
tissue and causing the level of metals such as cobalt in the blood
to soar.
DePuy has vigorously fought back against Herlihy-Paoli’s claims and
said the device did not fail and the plaintiff's lawyers never
identified a specific flaw that caused her injuries.
The jury began deliberating Tuesday evening and will continue
Wednesday. The case is before U.S. District Judge Ed Kinkeade in the
Northern District of Texas.
The outcome of Herlihy-Paoli’s case will weigh on more than 6,000
other cases over Pinnacle hip implants that have been consolidated
in the same Dallas federal court, and could impact Johnson &
Johnson’s willingness to settle the lawsuits or continue to try
cases in hopes of beating plaintiffs’ claims.
In his closing argument Tuesday, a lawyer for Herlihy-Paoli, Mark
Lanier, said DePuy aggressively pushed the metal-on-metal devices
for younger patients with active lifestyles, saying they could last
longer than versions made with other materials such as ceramic or
polyethylene, a type of plastic.
But in doing so, Lanier said, the company ignored years’ worth of
data suggesting that metal-on-metal hips failed at an abnormally
high rate, putting thousands of patients at risk.
"Send a clear message that holds them accountable," Lanier told
jurors. He asked them to award at least $1.4 million for Herlihy-Paoli's
medical costs and an additional, unspecified amount in punitive
damages.
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Throughout the trial, DePuy has maintained that the devices are safe
when properly used, and that plaintiffs’ lawyers unfairly tried to
target Pinnacle for problems linked to different metal-on-metal hip
implants, including DePuy’s ASR implant, which was recalled in 2010.
Last year, DePuy agreed to pay $2.5 billion to settle more than
7,000 lawsuits over its ASR metal-on-metal hips.
Richard Sarver, a lawyer for DePuy, said Herlihy-Paoli’s two
Pinnacle hips may have been improperly positioned, and that her
active lifestyle may have exacerbated any problems.
“If you place a cup in the wrong position, which is what happened
here, bad things happen," Sarver said.
A spokeswoman for DePuy, Mindy Tinsley, said the company is
committed to “vigorously defending itself against the claims” made
in Pinnacle lawsuits.
The case is Herlihy-Paoli v. Pinnacle, U.S. District Court for the
Northern District of Texas, No. 12-4975.
(Reporting by Jessica Dye in New York and Marice Richter in Dallas.;
Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Lisa Shumaker)
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