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Online Sources

1. Boston Scientific Settles $34.5M Pelvic Mesh Suit In Texas

   Oct 28, 2015 | Law360

   By Jess Davis
   
   
   Boston Scientific Corp. has reached a deal with a couple who won a $34.5 million judgment in Texas state court holding the company liable for making defective pelvic mesh, as well as settled a “substantial number” of other pelvic mesh cases, according to court records.

Client Attorney Privileged/Attorney Work Product/At Request of Counsel

Online Sources

1. Boston Scientific Settles $34.5M Pelvic Mesh Suit In Texas

   Oct 28, 2015 | Law360

   By Jess Davis

   Boston Scientific Corp. has reached a deal with a couple who won a $34.5 million judgment in Texas state court holding the company liable for making defective pelvic mesh, as well as settled a “substantial number” of other pelvic mesh cases, according to court records.
   
   In a motion filed Monday asking the Fifth Court of Appeals in Dallas to dismiss its appeal of the $34.5 million judgment, Boston Scientific said the case brought by Martha and Felix Salazar over the company’s Obtryx-brand synthetic transvaginal sling had been settled and the parties would bear their own costs. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed. The Salazars had won a $73 million jury verdict in 2014, including $50 million in punitive damages, that was reduced by the trial court in its final judgment.
   
   In a September filing with the appellate court, counsel for the Salazars said Boston Scientific executed a master settlement agreement and established a qualified settlement fund for the resolution of a “substantial number of claims,” including the Salazar’s case. The Salazars had at that time already agreed to the settlement, but asked for an extension of time to file a reply brief to allow the settlement to be fully executed and finalized.
   
   Lawyers for the parties did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday.
   
   In the Sept. 21 motion for an extension, counsel for the Salazars said they had received executed settlement disclosures and agreements from a “substantial number of claims,” and anticipated they would receive the remainder of the required executed agreements, pursuant to the master settlement agreement, within 30 days.
   
   The appeals court had given the Salazars until Oct. 29 to file a brief responding to Boston Scientific’s argument that because doctors adopted mesh as the standard of care, it cannot be negligent to have manufactured pelvic mesh.
   
   In Boston Scientific’s appeal, filed in June, it argued it was entitled to a take-nothing judgment against the Salazars  because synthetic transvaginal slings like its Obtryx-brand device were the standard treatment for stress urinary incontinence. Calling Salazar’s case an “indictment of the medical judgment of the majority of practitioners in the field” who use the pelvic mesh devices, the company said there is no basis or evidence to hold it liable for manufacturing a device that doctors sought out.
   
   The company had also argued the Salazars failed to prove an alternative design for a sling that would reduce the risks to patients without posing additional risks or impairing the device’s utility. The company said it made adequate warnings about possible complications from using the device and argued the evidence of Salazar’s injuries isn’t linkable to the use of the Obtryx sling.
   
   Salazar and her husband filed a medical malpractice suit in December 2012 against the doctor and hospital who implanted the sling, later adding Boston Scientific to the suit and dropping the other defendants. They alleged that the mesh used in the Obtryx was designed with material “biologically incompatible with human tissue” and that it caused an immune response that degrades pelvic tissue and can contribute to a severe adverse reaction to the mesh.
   
   The suit alleged Boston Scientific used aggressive marketing campaigns and paid valuable benefits to health care providers to promote use of the Obtryx sling and alleged its brochures and websites offered exaggerated and misleading expectations about the safety and utility of the pelvic mesh products.
   
   In what was the first loss for Boston Scientific in litigation over its pelvic mesh products, the jury found that there was a safer alternative design available for the Obtryx device and that it was unreasonably dangerous as marketed, and found unanimously that Boston Scientific had acted with gross negligence.
   
   Boston Scientific is represented by Vanie Wittie, Maria Karos and Dawn McCord ofSedgwick LLP.
   
   The Salazars are represented by Tim Goss, Sheila Bossier and Tamara Banno of Freese & Goss PLLC, Peter de la Cerda and Kevin Edwards of Edwards & de la Cerda PLLC, David Matthews and Julie Rhoades of Matthews and Associates and Richard Capshaw of Capshaw & Associates.
   
   The case is Boston Scientific Corp. v. Salazar et al, case number 05-14-01617-CV, in the Texas Court of Appeals for the Fifth District.
   

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