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1. Nearly Fifty Pelvic Mesh Suits against Bard have Settled

   Apr 27, 2016 | Legal Reader

   By Jay W. Belle Isle
   
   
   Nearly fifty pelvic mesh suits against Bard have settled this week, according to U.S. District Judge Joseph R. Goodwin. The cases, alleging various injuries from C.R. Bard Inc.’s pelvic mesh devices, were “compromised and settled,” along with claims against other mesh producers.
2. 90,000 Pelvic Mesh Lawsuits Burden Court, Judge Dismisses 140 Bard Cases

   Apr 27, 2016 | Mesh News Desk

   Judge Joseph Goodwin Monday dismissed 149 product liability lawsuits naming mesh maker C.R. Bard, ending the plaintiffs’ ability to file another pelvic mesh product liability lawsuit against the manufacturer ever again. He wrote, “all claims have been compromised and settled.”
3. 4th Circ. Affirms Toss Of Utah Woman's Vaginal Mesh Suit

   Apr 27, 2016 | Law360

   By John Kennedy
   
   
   The Fourth Circuit on Tuesday affirmed a lower court's ruling that a case thrown out of the sprawling pelvic mesh multidistrict litigation was barred by a two-year statute of limitations, finding that the woman should've begun questioning the mesh's effectiveness by at least the end of 2007.

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

Online Sources

1. Nearly Fifty Pelvic Mesh Suits against Bard have Settled

   Apr 27, 2016 | Legal Reader

   By Jay W. Belle Isle

   Nearly fifty pelvic mesh suits against Bard have settled this week, according to U.S. District Judge Joseph R. Goodwin. The cases, alleging various injuries from C.R. Bard Inc.’s pelvic mesh devices, were “compromised and settled,” along with claims against other mesh producers. As a result, the cases were dismissed with prejudice, meaning the claims can never be revisited. Details of the settlement agreements were not available.

   Judge Goodwin was tasked with oversight of the huge multidistrict litigation (MDL) in federal court in West Virginia. The recently settled cases claimed Bard was liable for marketing and selling defective mesh devices that were responsible for internal injuries. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 cases against Bard remain in the MDL.

   These cases are a fraction of the claims, totaling roughly 70,000, against Ethicon (a Johnson & Johnson division), Bard and Boston Scientific Corporation in seven separate MDLs in West Virginia. Ethicon alone has nearly 23,000 suits which it must defend against.

   Bard lost one of the early trials in August 2013 in the MDL in a case involving its Avaulta Plus Posterior BioSynthetic Support System. The jury found in favor of the plaintiff, Donna Cisson awarding her a $2M verdict. The Avaulta system, used to treat stress urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse (POP) was found to be the cause of the plaintiff’s serious internal injuries.

   Recently, the FDA reclassified pelvic mesh devices similar to the ones involved in the MDL as high-risk devices. As such, they must pass the agency’s strictest safety evaluation before going to market.Do mesh manufacturers shed tears for those harmed? (Image courtesy of www.crbard.com).

   Despite that reclassification, mesh devices remain a high-risk treatment for patients. We’ve seen with other “high-risk devices” that the FDA’s strictest safety evaluation is not always thorough, nor is it very effective in preventing dangerous medical devices from hitting the market.

   http://www.legalreader.com/nearly-fifty-pelvic-mesh-suits-against-bard-have-settled/
   

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2. 90,000 Pelvic Mesh Lawsuits Burden Court, Judge Dismisses 140 Bard Cases

   Apr 27, 2016 | Mesh News Desk

   90,000 Pelvic Mesh Lawsuits Burden Court, Judge Dismisses 140 Bard Cases

   Judge Joseph Goodwin

   Mesh Medical Device News Desk, April 27, 2016~ Judge Joseph Goodwin Monday dismissed 149 product liability lawsuits naming mesh maker C.R. Bard, ending the plaintiffs’ ability to file another pelvic mesh product liability lawsuit against the manufacturer ever again.

   He wrote, “all claims have been compromised and settled.” 

   Medtronic and Covidien supplied the mesh to Bard and they were also named in the dismissal, which presumably followed an undisclosed settlement amount.

   Judge Goodwin dismissed them with prejudice meaning they cannot be filed again.   

   The multidistrict litigation involving pelvic mesh made by seven manufacturers before Judge Goodwin is the largest ever amassed in one court which, as of today, numbers 90,131 cases.

   To lighten the untenable load, numerous cases have been remanded back to state courts across the country or settled and removed from the list.

    

   Settlements, Trials  

   Last year, C.R. Bard said it would offer more than $200 million to settle 3,000 cases filed by pelvic mesh injured women. Still ahead and filed in Judge Goodwin’s court are 13,429 cases naming mesh maker Bard and claiming injury from its defective product.

   The only other major manufacturer which has promised to settle cases is AMS, (American Medical Systems) owned by Endo International. Ethicon/Johnson & Johnson  still plans to resolve the remainder of its 40,000 cases through litigation.

   There are also cases naming C.R. Bard filed in numerous states and there are 1,541 cases naming CR Bard consolidated in New Jersey.  See that here.

   The first two product liability trials naming Bard were lost by the company.

   In 2012, Christine Scott was awarded $3.6 million against the company by a Bakersfield, California jury.  Donna Cisson was awarded $2 million by a Charleston, WV jury in 2013.

   Bard filed an appeal on the amount which included $1.75 million in punitive damages but in January, an appeals court upheld the jury’s award.

   The appeals court denied Cisson’s challenge to Georgia’s split-recovery statute.  It requires the state to retain 75 percent of punitive damages with the remainder going to Cisson. The Scott case has been paid.

   The appeals court also agreed with Judge Goodwin’s decision at trial, specifically that he was right not to allow evidence of the Food and Drug Administration’s 510(k) approval process that allowed mesh to be sold without assurances for safety and efficacy.

   During the Cisson trial, Judge Goodwin described Bard’s attempt to hide its identity in purchasing raw polypropylene resin:

   Judge Joseph Goodwin“This secretive conduct in an effort to sidestep the MSDS warnings suggests reprehensible conduct, weighting against remittitur.”

   The MSDS is the Material Safety Data Sheet accompanies the raw resin and clearly says:

   “Do not use this Phillips Sumika Polypropylene Company material in medical applications involving brief or temporary implantation in the human body or contact with internal body fluids or tissues unless the material has been provided directly from Phillips Sumika polypropylene Company under an agreement which expressly acknowledges the contemplated use.”

   See story here.

   Cisson and Scott had both been implanted with a Bard Avaulta pelvic mesh, made with polypropylene provided by Phillips Sumika.

   Bard is expected to report first quarter earnings Wednesday at 5 pm when it hosts a conference call.  Based in Murray Hill, New Jersey, C.R. Bard (BCR) designs, manufactures and distributes medical, surgical, and patient care devices worldwide.

    

   Background

   In February, Bard enjoyed one of the few trial victories in the case of Eve Sherrer in Kansas City, Missouri.   Voting 10-2, jurors rejected the contention that the Bard Align and the Boston Scientific Solyx were defective.  Sherrer had sought $28 million.  This was the longest pelvic mesh product liability trial to be conducted stretching one month over the holiday season.

   In February 2015, Bard settled with Debra Wise on the eve of trial. See story here.
   
   Bard is facing in excess of $7 million in jury awards to six plaintiffs.  In October 2014, the company offered to settle 500 cases for $21 million.

   http://www.meshmedicaldevicenewsdesk.com/90000-pelvic-mesh-lawsuits-burden-court-settlements-slow/
   

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3. 4th Circ. Affirms Toss Of Utah Woman's Vaginal Mesh Suit

   Apr 27, 2016 | Law360

   By John Kennedy

   The Fourth Circuit on Tuesday affirmed a lower court's ruling that a case thrown out of the sprawling pelvic mesh multidistrict litigation was barred by a two-year statute of limitations, finding that the woman should've begun questioning the mesh's effectiveness by at least the end of 2007.
   
   The three-judge panel said in an unpublished opinion that plaintiff Brenda L. Robinson's claims, as well as her husband's derivative claims, came too long after the expiration of Utah's two-year statute of limitations for product liability actions. Robinson's case was cut from the MDL afterBoston Scientific Corp., which made the mesh, won summary judgment last year.
   
   Although the West Virginia federal court overseeing the case ruled that the two-year clock began to tick on April 25, 2007, when Dr. Clayton Wilde told Robinson that her problems were being caused by the mesh, the appellate court took a slightly different route.
   
   Though Wilde told Robinson that the mesh was hurting her, he attributed it more to sexual intercourse rather than a product defect, the court said, and she could've believed that she was at fault, not the mesh itself. However, Wilde also told her that surgery could alleviate her symptoms, which it ultimately did not.
   
   "When the revision surgery failed to correct her symptoms, Robinson had 'sufficient information' to put her 'on notice to make further inquiry' about the cause-in-fact of her harm," the Fourth Circuit said. "By that point, Robinson was on inquiry notice that the mesh could be the cause-in-fact of her harm and was required to perform due diligence to determine if it was the actual cause."
   
   Instead, she continued to seek treatment for her symptoms, and it wasn't until February 2012, almost five years after the revision surgery, when Robinson saw a television advertisement about complications from transvaginal surgical mesh, that she first considered the mesh may have been defective.
   
   She sought a second opinion about her mesh and eventually had it all extracted, then sued Boston Scientific in Utah for negligence and other claims, the court said.
   
   The MDL is ongoing, and on Monday, U.S. District Judge Joseph R. Goodwin said that several dozen women have agreed to end their suits against C.R. Bard Inc. He dismissed the suits from roughly 50 women with prejudice, saying that all their claims had been settled against Bard and other companies named in their suits over allegedly defective mesh.
   
   There are some 10,000 cases pending against Bard in the MDL, court records show.
   
   Even so, those are only part of the litigation of mesh manufacturers, including Ethicon Inc., Bard and Boston Scientific.
   Seven separate MDLs comprising 70,000 cases are pending in West Virginia over the allegedly defective products.
   
   The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently reclassified pelvic mesh devices like those at issue in the suits as high-risk devices that must undergo the agency's most stringent safety evaluation before hitting the market.
   
   Neither Robinson nor Boston Scientific could be reached for comment Wednesday.
   
   The Fourth Circuit panel was comprised of U.S. Circuit Judges Dennis W. Shedd, Stephanie D. Thacker and Pamela A. Harris.
   
   Robinson is represented by Jessica Ann Kasischke, Karen Beyea-Schroeder, Sylvia Davidow and Kelsey L. Stokes of Fleming Nolen & Jez LLP.
   
   Boston Scientific is represented by Daniel Brandon Rogers of Shook Hardy & Bacon LLP, and Michael Bonasso and Lindsey M. Saad of Flaherty Sensabaugh & Bonasso PLLC.
   
   The case is Brenda L. Robinson, et al., v. Boston Scientific Corp., case number 15-1441, in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
   
   --Additional reporting by Emily Field. Editing by Catherine Sum.

   http://www.law360.com/articles/789503/4th-circ-affirms-toss-of-utah-woman-s-vaginal-mesh-suit-
   

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