$3.3M Verdict Against Bard In IVC Filter Suit

Introduction

A woman was awarded a $3.3 million verdict by a Wisconsin federal jury in an IVC filter lawsuit against C.R. Bard that claimed a part of the filter became embedded in her heart.

The jury held the company responsible for not issuing an appropriate warning of the risks associated with the device. The plaintiff had implanted the filter in 2013 as a preventive measure for varicose veins. The jury found that the woman was not at all liable for her fracture and the complete blame is to be put on the manufacturer for negligence and design claims.

As per the court documents, the woman started experiencing abdominal pain just after three days of the implant as the filter had tilted and one strut had perforated her inferior vena cava, as indicated in the CT scan. A year later x-ray revealed that the filter was even more tilted and had fractured two struts, with one strut in the inferior vena cava and the other in the right ventricle of her heart.

In 2014, a surgeon tried to remove the filter but did not succeed, but four years later another surgeon managed to remove the filter and a strut, but one of the struts remained in her right ventricle.

The woman is suffering from extreme anxiety about the possible harm she might suffer due to the remainder of the strut in her body. She would require to undergo open-heart surgery to get the strut removed from the right ventricle, which could result in significant morbidity and death.

Bard argued that considering the separate finding on liability, U.S. District Judge William M. Conley should not reward punitive damages to the plaintiff as there is no clear evidence about the manufacturer being negligent about the product.

The attorney for the plaintiff said that the verdict was for compensatory damages and in the past 90 days he along with other attorneys obtained three jury verdicts in Texas, Oregon, and Wisconsin in similar vein lawsuits.

The plaintiff even argued that three different juries in three different states have consistently claimed that the Bard IVC filters caused serious harm to the users due to their unacceptable safety profile.

Bard faced three bellwether trials in the MDL in 2018 where one of the trials ended up awarding $3.6 million to the plaintiff.

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