Transvaginal mesh lawyers at Pintas & Mullins Law Firm are happy to announce that C.R. Bard, was recently found liable for injuries suffered by a woman after being implanted with its vaginal mesh. The company will have to pay the injured woman $2 million.
The case was considered a bellwether trial, which is a trial used to indicate future trends in specific litigation proceedings. Since there are so many cases regarding injuries from transvaginal mesh devices, this first trial was critically important in determining the legitimacy of plaintiff’s claims and theories. There are currently about five other mesh bellwethers scheduled for this year.
Ultimately, the West Virginia federal jury found that C.R. Bard was indeed negligent in its manufacturing and selling of the transvaginal mesh product, which it knew to be defective and dangerous and sold to hundreds of thousands of women anyway. The jury held that Bard showed a conscious indifference to the harmful effects the device would have in patients.
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The plaintiff in the case, Donna Cisson, successfully argued that she was never adequately informed of the dangers of having the mesh device, the Avulta Plus, implanted when she consented to the procedure. Had she known about the risks, she never would have consented.
There are three other bellwethers scheduled in the West Virginia multi-district litigation (MDL), which all involve injuries by Bard’s Avaulta Plus. Several other manufacturers made similar, equally dangerous devices, including Ethicon, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, Boston Scientific, and American Medical Systems, a subsidiary of Endo Pharmaceuticals. Each of these companies are currently facing separate MDLs, also in West Virginia.
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Cisson, along with the thousands of other transvaginal mesh plaintiffs, required invasive follow-up procedures to remove loose pieces of mesh that had broken off of the mesh. The loose pieces damaged her pelvic region, perforating many of her internal organs and causing excruciating, chronic pain. She sued Bard on failure-to-warn claims, claiming the company knowingly withheld information about Avaulta’s dangers from her and her physician.
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About a month ago, in July 2013, two separate groups of women filed lawsuits in Texas courts, alleging injuries from Johnson & Johnson units Endo Pharmaceuticals and Mentor Worldwide, both of which manufactured pelvic mesh products. Both groups claim the implants were unsafe and caused permanent injuries.
Another group of nearly 30 women filed suit against American Medical Systems (AMS), arguing it sold the pelvic mesh devices with design flaws that injured major nerves and cause internal tissue damage. Two of their husbands also filed claims against the manufacturer for loss of consortium (the inability of one’s spouse to have normal marital relations).
All plaintiffs claim that AMS, Mentor and Endo knew or reasonably should have known about the research which found the meshes failed in high rates and caused serious injuries and complications. Plaintiffs also assert the manufacturers fraudulently misrepresented the efficacy and safety of the products through various marketing campaigns, which intentionally and actively misled the public.
Each lawsuit is seeking over $1 million in damages for failure-to-warn, design defects, breach of warranties, and fraudulent misrepresentation and concealment. They are also seeking punitive damages for their extensive medical bills, metal pain and suffering, and lost wages.
Even after the widespread problems with the products were made public, these companies continued to underreport and withhold information from patients and physicians alike. Juries throughout the country are agreeing; in February 2012, a New Jersey jury awarded a woman $11.1 million in damages after she was severely and permanently injured from Ethicon’s vaginal mesh product, the Gynecare Prolift.
Transvaginal mesh lawyers at Pintas & Mullins Law Firm are currently representing clients injured by these inherently dangerous, fraudulently marketed products. If you or a loved one was seriously injured by a transvaginal or pelvic mesh, you have important legal rights, and may be entitled to significant compensation through a lawsuit against the manufacturer.
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