NY Judges Favors Defendant Over Design Defect Claim

Introduction

In an order issued on September 29, 2018, Judge Alison Nathan of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, tossed a lawsuit filed against C.R. Bard's IVC filter design defects.

The plaintiff was implanted with Bard's IVC filter on October 30, 2002, which proved to be a failure later, as he suffered severe injuries due to device breakage and tissue perforation. The case was dismissed since the plaintiff failed to present the product's flaws and did not furnish a feasible alternative design; he was also unable to prove that the failure-to-warn claims made by BSC were insufficient.

The manufacturer faces more than 3,800 lawsuits following reports of design defects, device breakage, and tissue perforation. Multidistrict litigation (MDL No. 2641; In Re: Bard IVC Filters Products Liability Litigation) was created on August 17, 2015, in the United States District Court District of Arizona, presided over by Judge David G. Campbell for centralized pretrial proceedings.

Recently, the Arizona federal judge trimmed claims made by a plaintiff involved in the lawsuit stating that the plaintiff cannot be awarded for the possibility of a heart arrhythmia condition likely to take place in the future. This was the third C.R. Bard bellwether trial over the alleged injuries caused by Bard’s IVC filters.

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