Preview Newsletter
Morcellation Media Monitoring 02/22/2016
-
Three Lawyers Withdraw From Power Morcellator MDL Steering Committee
Feb 19, 2016 | Righting Injustice
By Jennifer Walker-Journey
Three attorneys have withdrawn from the 20-person plaintiff leadership team in the multidistrict litigation (MDL) over power morcellators made by Johnson & Johnson’s Ethicon Inc., over disagreements with legal fees and costs.
Client Attorney Privileged/Attorney Work Product/At Request of Counsel
Morcellation
Full Text of Stories Below
-
Three Lawyers Withdraw From Power Morcellator MDL Steering Committee
Feb 19, 2016 | Righting Injustice
By Jennifer Walker-Journey
Three attorneys have withdrawn from the 20-person plaintiff leadership team in the multidistrict litigation (MDL) over power morcellators made by Johnson & Johnson’s Ethicon Inc., over disagreements with legal fees and costs.
The MDL steering committee, appointed by U.S. District Judge Kathryn Vratil ofKansas, was recognized as the first to be made up of a majority of women, a seemingly obvious idea considering the power morcellation complaints directly affect women. The resignations leave only 10 women on the now-17-person committee.
The lawyers took issue with requirements that they should pay into a proposed common benefit fund for cases they had just settled. A common benefit fund charges a “hold back” amount on settlements and judgments of individual cases in order to pay for the attorney fees and costs that lead counsel incur in an MDL, according to the National Law Journal.
The fund was established on Dec.31, requiring lawyers with recent settlements to retroactively pay 2 percent of their fees and costs to the fund. That requirement was later removed and other changes made, but the three lawyers on the committee, along with two other plaintiffs attorneys, have withdrawn. There is no word on whether the committee members will be replaced.
Power morcellators are surgical tools used for hysterectomies and myomectomies, or uterine fibroid removals. The devices are fitted with a long, tube-like blade that minces uterine fibroids or entire uteruses within the uterine cavity and removes the tissue through a small incision in the abdomen. The procedures have been favored over open surgeries by some doctors because they are less invasive, leave less scar tissue, and offer shorter recovery.
However, researchers have recently found that power morcellation can spread undiagnosed uterine cancer – or uterine sarcoma – throughout the abdomen, making the disease more difficult to treat and worsening the odds of survival. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last year placed a black box warning on power morcellators and recommended the tools not be used on most women.
In 2014, Ethicon stopped selling its power morcellation device, and the company is currently under investigation by the FBI and the Government Accountability Office to determine how much it knew of the risk of cancer spread with power morcellation.
More than 30 lawsuits have been filed against Ethicon over cancer spread with its power morcellators.
Client Attorney Privileged/Attorney Work Product/At Request of Counsel
Morcellation
Full Text of Stories Below
Add recipients
Suggested