Attorneys Assigned Leadership Roles in Bard Hernia Mesh MDL

Introduction

In a case management order issued on September 19, C.R. Bard’s hernia mesh multidistrict litigation (MDL) Judge Edmund A. Sargus appointed two attorneys as Plaintiffs' Co-Lead Counsel, one attorney as Plaintiffs' Liaison Counsel, four to serve on a Plaintiffs' Executive Committee, and eight additional attorneys were assigned to Plaintiffs' Steering Committee.

The move was taken to coordinate general discovery into common issues in the trial cases, argue motions before the court and take required actions during the recently formed MDL proceedings that will benefit all plaintiffs. However, each plaintiff is required to maintain their own attorney for handling case-specific issues linked to Bard hernia mesh. Product liability lawsuits filed across several federal courts claim complications related to Bard Ventralex, Bard Perfix, Bard Composix, and other polypropylene hernia patch products sold by C.R. Bard. Plaintiffs accuse the mesh manufacturer of knowingly ignoring the design defects of the mesh, which has caused them severe complications post surgery prompting them to remove the mesh within a few years. If the settlement agreement is not reached through bellwether proceedings, the cases might be remanded back to the U.S. District Court where they were originally filed.

As of August 2018, 120 hernia mesh lawsuits over different brands of Bard Davol polypropylene products are pending in the federal court. The multidistrict litigation against C.R. Bard was formed on August 2, 2018, assigned to U.S. District Judge Edmund A. Sargus (In Re: Davol, Inc./C.R. Bard, Inc., Polypropylene Hernia Mesh Products Liability Litigation, MDL Docket No. 2846, JPML) for coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings in the Southern District of Ohio.

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