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Ethicon Aug 28
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Judge Orders Trial Preparation for 200 Ethicon Mesh Lawsuits
Aug 27, 2015 | Surgical Watch
By Jacky Gale
The federal judge presiding over the transvaginal mesh litigation coordinated in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia has ordered that 200 of the mesh injury lawsuits filed against Ethicon be prepared for trial dates early in 2016. Ethicon, which is a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, has been named as the defendant... -
Journalist Spotlight: Alison Frankel on Recent Special Report
Aug 28, 2015 | Thomson Reuters
Last week, a Reuters Special Report by Alison Frankel and Jessica Dye revealed how medical-device litigation in the U.S. has lent momentum to a little-known industry: companies that profit from surgeries on poor plaintiffs. After examining cases involving transvaginal mesh, the subject of the biggest onslaught of personal-injury...
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Judge Orders Trial Preparation for 200 Ethicon Mesh Lawsuits
Aug 27, 2015 | Surgical Watch
By Jacky Gale
The federal judge presiding over the transvaginal mesh litigation coordinated in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia has ordered that 200 of the mesh injury lawsuits filed against Ethicon be prepared for trial dates early in 2016. Ethicon, which is a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, has been named as the defendant in almost 30,000 product liability lawsuits.
The plaintiffs allege that the Ethicon Gynecare mesh products are unreasonably dangerous and led to severe complications. Ethicon is just one of a handful of manufacturers that are dealing with civil litigation regarding transvaginal mesh implants. Over 70,000 lawsuits have been filed against a handful of manufacturers, including C.R. Bard, American Medical Systems, and Boston Scientific. Plaintiffs allege serious complications
Like other transvaginal mesh products, the Ethicon Gynecare implant was intended to treat women diagnosed with pelvic organ prolapse (POP) or urinary incontinence. The mesh implant provides support to the reproductive organs. However, serious complications have allegedly been linked to these medical devices. The women who have filed Ethicon mesh injury lawsuits claim that the products eroded leading to organ perforation. These conditions can be excruciatingly painful.
Additionally, the Gynecare product was designed to allow the body’s own tissues to grow into the mesh. This means that even when a woman undergoes one or more revision surgeries in an attempt to remove the mesh implant, these surgeries may not necessarily be successful. The plaintiffs demand that Ethicon be held liable for their damages, including medical expenses, loss of earning capacity, permanent disfigurement and disability, and pain and suffering. Judge expected to remand cases
This latest order issued by U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin is an attempt to move the litigation process forward. While some transvaginal mesh manufacturers have settled cases, Judge Goodwin has expressed his frustration over the slow pace of settlement efforts. In the order issued on August 19, 2015, Judge Goodwin has ordered that case-specific discovery be completed within the next six months for the group of the 200 oldest vaginal mesh lawsuits that name only Ethicon or Johnson & Johnson as defendants. The judge further ordered that challenges to the admissibility of expert testimony and dispositive motions be filed by March 2016.
Once these pre-trial matters are completed, it is expected that Judge Goodwin will begin the process of remanding the 200 cases back to the districts that they would have been filed in, had a multidistrict litigation (MDL) not formed. Once a case has been transferred, the trial may proceed.
However, it is entirely possible that not all of the 200 cases will go to trial. Plaintiffs and defendants may reach settlements regarding transvaginal mesh injuries at any time during the litigation process. If early trials result in significant judgments against Ethicon and Johnson & Johnson, the defendants may be more willing to resolve the cases through settlements.
In the early spring of 2015, a California jury ordered Ethicon to pay $5.7 million for failing to warn consumers of the risks of the mesh products. The jury award came after a woman filed a mesh injury lawsuit against Ethicon, alleging that mesh erosion caused significant pain that is expected to last for her lifetime.
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Journalist Spotlight: Alison Frankel on Recent Special Report
Aug 28, 2015 | Thomson Reuters
Last week, a Reuters Special Report by Alison Frankel and Jessica Dye revealed how medical-device litigation in the U.S. has lent momentum to a little-known industry: companies that profit from surgeries on poor plaintiffs. After examining cases involving transvaginal mesh, the subject of the biggest onslaught of personal-injury litigation since asbestos, Reuters revealed that some surgical-funding outfits facilitate victims’ surgery by purchasing their medical bills at a deep discount from the surgeon and placing a lien for the full amount against the plaintiffs’ settlements. The liens sometimes spiral to as much as 10 times what private insurers or government programs would pay for the same procedures. In a Reuters Best: Journalist Spotlight Q&A, Alison offers a look at the reporting behind the story. 27 Aug 2015Thomson Reuters
Q. How did you and Jessica get started on the story?
A. In January, Johnson & Johnson filed a brief claiming that women were being improperly solicited by offshore call centers to join the massive litigation over pelvic mesh. According to J&J, these call centers seemed to have access to some women’s medical records. Others were supposedly telling women that if they lied about their medical history, they could get a $40,000 settlement. Jessica and I both follow products liability litigation closely and neither of us had ever seen allegations like this. We decided to work together to find out everything we could about the litigation over pelvic mesh.
Q. What types of reporting/sourcing were involved?
A. When we started reporting, we weren’t sure where the story would take us. So we talked to everyone we could think of: lawyers, consumer advocates, regulatory experts, mesh patients, doctors, legal marketers who help plaintiffs lawyers find clients – dozens and dozens of people. A very skittish confidential source was the first person who mentioned private investors paying for surgery for mesh patients. He’d only heard vague rumors about it, but his tip led us back into the litigation records, where Jessica found briefs that disclosed mesh defendants’ own investigation of a medical funding network. From there, we must have made a hundred phone calls, pulling together bits and pieces of information from all kinds of people, to understand what medical funding is and how it played out in the mesh litigation.
Q. What was the hardest part about reporting the story?
A. The way medical funders make money – by buying health care receivables at a deep discount from medical providers, then charging the full amount of the bill against a patient’s legal settlement – is really complicated. We very much wanted to show how the business operated in a real woman’s case. But almost all of the mesh patients we interviewed were advised by their lawyers not to speak on the record for fear they would compromise their cases. Traci Rizzo, whose story we tell in our article, decided that she would take that risk because she wanted other women to be better informed than she was.
Q. Why did you think this was an important story to tell our readers and clients?
A. Mass torts are big business. By the time it’s over, the mesh litigation will probably cost defendants more than $4 or $5 billion in settlements – and that money is sloshing way beyond the supposedly injured patients and their lawyers. We wanted to show how these private investors, as well as the doctors and brokers in their funding networks, are capitalizing on the sheer volume of claims in the mesh litigation to reap profits. We also wanted to show that those profits are coming at the expense of women who say their lives have been wrecked by mesh. Women like Traci Rizzo believe they’ve been doubly abused: by the manufacturers who sold mesh and by those they believed they could rely on after they brought claims.
Q. What is your beat and what do you find most fulfilling about it?
A. Jessica and I are both legal journalists. I write a column about business litigation and Jessica specializes in cases involving supposedly defective products. Both of us enjoy the challenge of digesting complicated legal issues and turning them into stories anyone can understand. But because we often write for lawyers, we also have to show a deep understanding of the law. Everyone is affected, one way or another, by what happens in courthouses. It’s a great feeling when we can produce stories that are sophisticated enough to speak to our core legal readers and also interesting and accessible to a broader audience.
Q. What have been your most rewarding and most difficult experiences as a journalist?
A. My most rewarding stories have been those in which I’ve been able to give a voice to people who feel the system isn’t listening to them, like the women in the mesh article. But I have to say that individual stories aren’t why I find journalism fulfilling. Especially since I became a daily columnist at Reuters in 2011, my favorite part of the job is connecting with readers. I love when I get questions or comments from readers on Twitter or when someone I’ve written about sends me an email suggesting a story idea. In a way, writing on the legal beat is like working at a community newspaper. You’re a member of the community and you feel a real responsibility to it.
Q. Can you imagine being anything other than a journalist? If so, what?
A. I can’t even imagine being anything but a reporter! I’ve been an editor at various points in my career but I always go back to reporting and writing. Calling people up and asking questions is the best job in the world. Except for maybe being a cat whisperer. (I have four.)
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