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Traditional Media Coverage of Motion Filing 2/11/15
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J&J Drops Plaintiff Solicitation Discovery Bid In Mesh MDL
Feb 17, 2015 | Law360
By Sindhu Sundar
Johnson & Johnson has withdrawn its discovery motion to pursue its allegations that the plaintiffs' attorneys in transvaginal mesh multidistrict litigation had engaged in illegal plaintiff solicitation and filed lawsuits without legitimate claims. -
Pelvic Mesh lawsuits: J&J drops claim that women were asked to lie for payouts
Feb 18, 2015 | MassDevice
By Brian Johnson
Attorneys for Johnson & Johnson have withdrawn a motion asking a federal judge overseeing thousands of pelvic mesh lawsuits to force the plaintiffs to prove they have a valid claim.
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J&J Drops Plaintiff Solicitation Discovery Bid In Mesh MDL
Feb 17, 2015 | Law360
By Sindhu Sundar
Johnson & Johnson has withdrawn its discovery motion to pursue its allegations that the plaintiffs' attorneys in transvaginal mesh multidistrict litigation had engaged in illegal plaintiff solicitation and filed lawsuits without legitimate claims.
U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin on Feb. 11 granted J&J's motion to withdraw its discovery motion related to its claims of plaintiff solicitation, though it did not disclose its reasons for the move. An attorney for J&J could not immediately be reached for comment late Tuesday.
An attorney for the plaintiffs said Tuesday that an independent sampling review did not unearth any fraudulent suits in the MDL over vaginal mesh devices manufactured by J&J unit Ethicon Inc.
"The plaintiffs' leadership is pleased that Ethicon has decided to withdraw its motion," Bryan Aylstock of Aylstock Witkin Kreis & Overholtz PLLC said in a statement Tuesday. "Moreover, the plaintiffs' leadership has always stood ready to work with Ethicon to investigate and put an end to any wrongful conduct, and the parties have pledged to work together to investigate and attempt to put an end to any wrongful solicitation of clients."
J&J filed a motion in January pushing plaintiffs in the litigation to offer sooner proof of their injuries, while the plaintiffs argued that J&J had not shown even one fraudulent complaint among the nearly 24,000 cases in MDL, according to court documents.
J&J and Ethicon claimed in their motion that certain "unscrupulous" call centers have somehow obtained the private medical information of certain women and repeatedly harass them to join the litigation for $30,000 to $40,000 settlements, even if they had never had the surgery.
In one such alleged call with a woman who had never had surgery with the mesh — though she'd had an unrelated surgery — a caller suggested that she lie to qualify for the money even after she told them she'd never had mesh implanted, saying, "That's OK, wouldn't you like $30,000?"
But the plaintiffs' attorneys argued that J&J had not shown a link between such call centers and plaintiffs' attorneys, and that the device maker was leveling the claims against them as a stalling tactic, according to court filings.
Ethicon and J&J are represented by David B. Thomas of Thomas Combs & Spann PLLC and Christy D. Jones of Butler Snow PLLC.
Plaintiffs are represented by The Potts Law Firm, Blasingame Burch Garrard Ashley PC, Motley Rice LLC, Beasley Allen Crow Methvin Portis & Miles PC and Aylstock Witkin Kreis & Overholtz PLLC, among others.
The MDL is In re: Ethicon Inc. Pelvic Repair Systems Product Liability Litigation, case number 2:12-md-02327, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia. -
Pelvic Mesh lawsuits: J&J drops claim that women were asked to lie for payouts
Feb 18, 2015 | MassDevice
By Brian Johnson
Attorneys for Johnson & Johnson have withdrawn a motion asking a federal judge overseeing thousands of pelvic mesh lawsuits to force the plaintiffs to prove they have a valid claim.
Johnson & Johnson: Women asked to lie for pelvic mesh payoffs
Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) has withdrawn its motion to have a federal judge overseeing thousands of pelvic mesh lawsuits to force the plaintiffs to prove they have a valid claim.
Attorneys for JNJ and its Ethicon subsidiary were granted a motion to withdraw the discovery bid by U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin on Feb. 11, according to a report in Law360. Attorneys for the New Brunswick, N.J.-based medical products conglomerate did not provide a reason as to why they withdrew their motion, the news source reported.
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"The plaintiffs' leadership is pleased that Ethicon has decided to withdraw its motion," Bryan Aylstock of Aylstock Witkin Kreis & Overholtz PLLC said in a statement to Law 360 on Tuesday. "Moreover, the plaintiffs' leadership has always stood ready to work with Ethicon to investigate and put an end to any wrongful conduct, and the parties have pledged to work together to investigate and attempt to put an end to any wrongful solicitation of clients."
On January 15th, attorneys for JNJ claimed in legal filings that plaintiffs have engaged in a campaign of telephone solicitation aimed at generating more cases.
"Women across the nation are receiving unsolicited phone calls from strangers who are seeking – or, more disturbingly, already know – their very personal medical information. These individuals, who on some occasions may call as often as 50 times a month, try to entice each woman into filing a lawsuit, oftentimes disregarding whether she has an injury or even had a mesh implant at all. In an apparent effort to legitimize their message or engender the woman's trust, some callers have gone so far as to say that they are associated with the FDA or with Johnson & Johnson," the company wrote in a court filing.
"What is happening here is wrong. And the fallout includes a compromised judicial system, exploitation of women and their federally (HIPPA) protected private health information, and undermined doctor-patient relationships," Johnson & Johnson argued, according to the filing.
At the time of the claim, the company asked Goodwin, who's overseeing the multi-district litigation that covers 10s of thousands of product liability lawsuits, to force plaintiffs to prove that they have a legitimate claim. And it wanted Goodwin to force the plaintiffs' lawyers to testify under oath and in front of the judge "to determine who may be profiting from the unethical and illegal direct solicitation of women and whether further investigation of others is warranted," according to the filing.
"With the court's help, the parties can take steps to identify claims that should be dismissed because the plaintiff cannot demonstrate she ever had an injury or even had an Ethicon pelvic mesh device implanted at all. These steps also should help to curtail the tactics that have violated women's rights, put women at risk, and jeopardized the integrity of the judicial process," J&J wrote. "It is important that women bringing non-fraudulent claims have an opportunity to have their claims presented in court. At the same time, production of basic information supporting the claims is required to weed out fraudulent or unmeritorious suits."
The company provided a transcript of a cold call allegedly received by someone looking to file false cases:
Caller: Ma'am, yeah, we are the – yeah, because we have the criteria here to receive this medical compensation for the bladder sling surgery and for the mesh implant surgery, and I know you never have done this surgery before, but still as a good human being what I can do, I can provide information about the bladder sling surgery and you just have to share this information only two times on the call, I send to my counselor and then after to my attorney, that's it, ma'am, apart from that you doesn't have to do anything to receive your compensation. Okay?
Female Recipient of Call [FRC]: But I've never had a bladder sling or mesh surgery.
Caller: I know, [FRC] you never had done this surgery, but if you are interested to receive 30 up to 40 thousand dollars, you just have to tell my compensation officer that I had a bladder sling surgery and after that I had a complication.
[FRC]: I know, but –
Caller: So I will tell my –-
[FRC]: That would be lying though.
Caller: I do understand, but you have to tell a lie if you want to get the 30 up to 40 thousand dollars –
[FRC]: No.
Caller: No one will give you 30, 40 thousand dollars like that. You have to tell a lie for that.
[FRC]: Right, but that's illegal.
Caller: Can you do this?
[FRC]: No, I will not do that.
Caller: Can you?
[FRC]: That is ridiculous, that is illegal.
Caller: Okay, [FRC] bye bye.
[FRC]: So you are – I mean this is fraud.
Caller: Hello?
[FRC]: Yes.
Caller: What happened, miss, you don't want to lie for the 30 to 40 thousand dollars?
[FRC]: No, I don't want to lie. I mean I have morals. This is fraud, this is illegal, so...
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