J&J's Plea For Out-Of-State Mesh Cases Rejected

Introduction

A Pennsylvania appeals court dismissed Johnson & Johnson's petition to conduct an en banc hearing for a $13 million verdict awarded to an Indiana woman over pelvic mesh injury claims, in the state of Philadelphia County

J&J and its subsidiary Ethicon Inc. appealed to reconsider the decision made by a three-judge panel in June for a chunk of cases related to the company's pelvic mesh complications.

Ethicon Pelvic Mesh lawsuits are consolidated as a part of a multidistrict litigation (MDL No. 2327; In Re: Ethicon, Inc., Pelvic Repair System Products Liability Litigation) overlooked by U.S. District Judge Joseph R. Goodwin in the Southern District of West Virginia.

In December 2015, a Bergen County Jury of New Jersey unanimously awarded nearly $15 million to a woman who alleged she suffered from debilitating pain caused by one of the two pelvic mesh devices that she received in 2008 sold under J&J’s Ethicon brand name Prolift. The verdict supported the claim that the manufacturer failed to adequately warn about the potential side effects.

Seven pelvic mesh manufacturers are facing thousands of lawsuits under individual MDLs consolidated by U.S. District Judge Joseph R. Goodwin, in early 2012, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia. The total number of cases under the umbrella was over 102,133 cases as of March 2017. Formation of MDL No. 2327 in Re Ethicon, Inc., Pelvic Repair System Products Liability Litigation was a part of the consolidation. Ethicon has consistently had the largest number of product liability cases filed in the federal court with about 38,035 cases filed and 5,547 cases closed. These cases all relate to the use of transvaginal surgical mesh to treat pelvic organ prolapse ("POP") and/or stress urinary incontinence ("SUI").

Ethicon released a statement minutes after the verdict saying that it would appeal.

Comments