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Ethicon Media Monitoring 4/13/2018
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*Breaking* McGinnis Pelvic Mesh Trial $33 Million for Plaintiff, Punitive Phase Ahead
Apr 12, 2018 | Mesh Medical Device Newsdesk
By Jane Akre
The four-week trial of Mary McGinnis, implanted with two CR Bard pelvic meshes, ended Thursday afternoon with a plaintiff award of $33 million to Mary and her husband Tom. The punitive phase will be deliberated Friday. -
Bard Hit With $33M Pelvic Mesh Verdict In NJ
Apr 12, 2018 | Law 360
By Bill Wichert Archive Email Bill Wichert
A New Jersey state jury on Thursday said C.R. Bard Inc. must pay $33 million in compensatory damages over claims the business knew its pelvic mesh products were unsafe and failed to warn doctors about potential risks related to devices that caused a woman debilitating pain. -
BREAKING: C.R. Bard Hit With $33M Verdict At 1st New Jersey Pelvic Mesh Trial, Punitive Damages Phase To Follow
Apr 12, 2018 | Courtroom View Network
By David Siegel
A New Jersey state court jury slapped C.R. Bard Inc. with a $33 million verdict on Thursday in the first lawsuit to go to trial in the state over the company's supposedly defective pelvic mesh implants. -
N.J. Jury Awards Plaintiffs $33 Million in C.R. Bard Transvaginal Mesh Case
Apr 12, 2018 | HarrisMartin Publishing
A New Jersey state jury awarded a plaintiff in a C.R. Bard pelvic mesh case $33 million in compensatory damages after determining that the company did not warn the plaintiff’s doctors of the device’s potential risks. -
Doctor says woman’s osteoarthritis not asymptomatic in C.R. Bard mesh trial
Apr 12, 2018 | Legal Newsline
By John Sammon
A noted orthopedic surgeon maintained that a woman suing New Jersey-based C.R. Bard over allegations that a pelvic implant device caused pain experienced issues because of arthritis, not the implant. -
Ill. Federal Judge Denies Post-Verdict Motions in Transvaginal Mesh Case
Apr 12, 2018 | HarrisMartin Publishing
An Illinois federal judge has denied Ethicon and Johnson & Johnson’s motion for a judgment as a matter of law following a jury’s award of $55,000 in compensatory damages to a plaintiff who alleges she was injured by a Gynecare TVT Obturator System transvaginal mesh device.
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*Breaking* McGinnis Pelvic Mesh Trial $33 Million for Plaintiff, Punitive Phase Ahead
Apr 12, 2018 | Mesh Medical Device Newsdesk
By Jane Akre
The four-week trial of Mary McGinnis, implanted with two CR Bard pelvic meshes, ended Thursday afternoon with a plaintiff award of $33 million to Mary and her husband Tom. The punitive phase will be deliberated Friday.
The product liability trial against Bard over its pelvic mesh began March 19. Today, less than four weeks later, jurors delivered the verdict and compensatory award.
The five men and three women jury will work in the punitive phase, to punish the company tomorrow.
Mary McGinnis, of North Carolina, was awarded $23 million in compensatory damage, with another $10 million given to her husband, Thomas, for loss or consortium.The jury decided both pelvic mesh implants – the Avaulta and Align – were defectively designed and left her with chronic pain.
During the trial, attorneys for Bard blamed her pain on preexisting conditions such as osteoarthritis. McGinnis had to stand during much of her testimony, Thursday, March 29.
Adam Slater asked McGinnis to describe her pain. “Sharp pains in the vagina,” she said, which “radiates out and can go in any direction they want, sharp thick pains that shoot up. You realize nobody can help me – I have to tough it through. The pain is unending; the burning is horrible. It’s beyond debilitating. It hurts so much you can’t cry.”
“I never knew what severe pain was until I had the mesh,” Mary McGinnis said during the trial.
McGinnis told the court about her home-based day c
McGinnis told the court about her home-based day care during the trial. She can no longer lift children. Her husband must lift and play with the children. Tom also does shopping and cleaning. He told jurors her sense of humor is gone. “She puts on a good show, but no, she is not comfortable.”
BARD TRIALS SO FAR
This is the first trial in New Jersey for any pelvic mesh made by CR Bard.
In a 2012 Bakersfield, California trial, Christine Scott was awarded $5.5 million due to injuries from her Bard Avaulta implant, and an Avaulta case in West Virginia in 2013 ended with a $2 million award to Donna Cisson.
The 2016 Sheerer case in Missouri state court of a Bard Align and Boston Scientific Solyx ended in a defense verdict. Lori Cohen of Greenberg Traurig, who led the defense team in the McGinnis case, also represented the defendant in the Sheerer case.
McGinnis was represented by Adam Slater of Mazie, Slater, Katz Freeman of New Jersey. Slater has an unblemished record representing injured plaintiffs in a series of pelvic mesh trials.
Slater represented Linda Gross in Atlantic City, NJ in 2013 in her Prolift case against Ethicon that yielded $11.1 million for Ms. Gross, with no defective design conclusion. Slater led the Hrymoc case last December which also led to a $15 million verdict for the plaintiff.
The Joan Budke wrongful death case against Ethicon in Missouri in 2015 that Slater led, ended in an undisclosed settlement as the case was about to go to the jury.
PUNITIVE PHASE
Juries in these transvaginal mesh trials appear to be awarding greater compensatory and punitive damages over time.
Last month, the case of Barbara Kaiser in Indiana yielded $35 million in compensatory and $25 million in punitive damages against Ethicon, the maker of the Prolift mesh she was implanted to treat pelvic organ prolapse.
The Hrymoc trial, also in Bergen County, resulted in a $15 million verdict for Ms. Hrymoc. Of that, $10 million was punitive damages against Ethicon maker of Prolift and TVT-O implanted in the plaintiff.
Both the Avaulta for pelvic organ prolape (POP), and Align for incontinence (SUI) were taken off the market by Bard, in 2012 and 2016.
Bard is located in Murray Hill, New Jersey. An appeal of the verdict is customary.
Mary McGinnis and Thomas Walsh McGinnis v. C.R. Bard Inc., et al., case number BER-L-17543-14.
https://www.meshmedicaldevicenewsdesk.com/mcginnis-pelvic-mesh-trial-33-million-for-plaintiff-punitive-phase-ahead/
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Bard Hit With $33M Pelvic Mesh Verdict In NJ
Apr 12, 2018 | Law 360
By Bill Wichert Archive Email Bill Wichert
A New Jersey state jury on Thursday said C.R. Bard Inc. must pay $33 million in compensatory damages over claims the business knew its pelvic mesh products were unsafe and failed to warn doctors about potential risks related to devices that caused a woman debilitating pain.
On the first full day of deliberations in the nearly four-week trial, jurors handed down a verdict in favor of plaintiff Mary McGinnis and her husband, finding that her injuries were caused by the defective design of the company's Avaulta Solo Support System and Align Trans-Obturator Urethral Support System and the inadequate warnings for the devices.
The jury awarded compensatory damages of $23 million for McGinnis and $10 million for her husband and fellow plaintiff, Thomas. Jurors are expected to consider a potential punitive damages award on Friday.
After the verdict was issued, Adam Slater of Mazie Slater Katz & Freeman LLC, an attorney representing the North Carolina couple, told Law360 outside the Hackensack courtroom, “I’m very happy for Mary and Tom, who came to New Jersey from North Carolina and lived in a hotel room for a month, putting their entire life aside, and … they got justice today.”
Bard attorney Lori G. Cohen of Greenberg Traurig LLP declined to comment following Thursday’s verdict.
McGinnis, who filed the lawsuit in 2011, had the devices implanted in March 2009. She underwent the Avaulta Solo procedure to support her bladder, and the Align system was designed to treat stress urinary incontinence, court documents state.
McGinnis has alleged that, before her procedure, Bard knew about problems with the devices, and that her surgeon would not have implanted the devices in her if Bard had warned the physician about certain risks.
Slater told jurors on Wednesday in his closing argument that Bard had blown through “red lights” warnings of the dangers of the devices and pushed them onto market anyway.
“They knew that the problems with this mesh material were causing clinical harm to patients before this was ever put into Mary’s body,” Slater said. “They knew it was unsafe, and these were among the many red lights.”
Slater said that McGinnis’ doctor wasn't properly warned even of the risks that Bard was aware of, such as permanent pain and permanent sexual pain.
But Cohen argued during the trial that the products were “safe and effective” and stressed that they met all requisite standards and requirements to be sold on the market.
Cohen noted on March 19 in her opening statement that McGinnis signed an informed consent document before the initial procedure, arguing that she was notified by the surgeon — following warnings provided by Bard — about the risks of medical issues that McGinnis is now attributing to the company's products.
“She obviously knew this information and warned the patient of exactly the things they are now complaining about,” Cohen said, referring to the surgeon.
During her closing argument Wednesday, Cohen said the plaintiffs hadn’t come close to actually proving that Bard’s devices were defective, that Bard didn’t adequately warn of the risks and, most importantly, that McGinnis’ current health complaints were caused by the devices.
Cohen told the jury they should take notice of what the plaintiffs hadn’t told them and that came in through the defense's case — like McGinnis’ significant history of medical problems before she had the Bard devices implanted, or that it was a separate surgical procedure that was likely causing her inability to have sex with her husband.
The parties also clashed during the trial over how Bard did not perform clinical studies on the devices.
On Wednesday, Slater noted that Bard didn’t do clinical trials testing the Avaulta Solo on live patients before bringing it to market. He said its failure to do a real clinical study over time should be held against it, because had Bard done the study, it might have realized the risks of the mesh outweighed the benefits and would lead to the kind of painful scarring that has affected McGinnis.
Cohen countered Wednesday that even if Bard didn’t do a clinical study of the devices, the company didn’t need to because of the wealth of medical literature available on the technology they were based on. Bard also conducted extensive testing of the Avaulta Solo and the Align, Cohen said during the trial.
Mary and Thomas McGinnis are represented by Adam Slater and Cheryll A. Calderon of Mazie Slater Katz & Freeman LLC.
Bard is represented by Lori G. Cohen and Cliff Merrell of Greenberg Traurig LLP and Melissa A. Geist of Reed Smith LLP.
The case is Mary McGinnis et al. v. C.R. Bard Inc. et al., case number L-17543-14, in the Superior Court of New Jersey, County of Bergen.
--Additional reporting by Daniel Siegal. Editing by Emily Kokoll.
Update: This story has been updated with comments from plaintiffs’ counsel and more information about the case.https://www.law360.com/articles/1032723/bard-hit-with-33m-pelvic-mesh-verdict-in-nj
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Apr 12, 2018 | Courtroom View Network
By David Siegel
A New Jersey state court jury slapped C.R. Bard Inc. with a $33 million verdict on Thursday in the first lawsuit to go to trial in the state over the company's supposedly defective pelvic mesh implants.
The Bergen County jury awarded $23 million in compensatory damages to plaintiff Mary McGinnis and $10 million to her husband Thomas McGinnis. A second phase of the trial to determine punitive damages begins Friday.
Jurors determined Bard’s “Avaulta” and “Align” transvaginal mesh implants, which McGinnis received to treat her bladder prolapse and stress incontinence, were defectively designed and left her suffering from chronic pain.
Bard denied the allegations, maintaining that its products were extensively tested, and that McGinnis’ ailments are the results of other underlying medical issues. Both the Avaulta and Align implants were taken off the market in 2012 and 2016, respectively.
The full trial, which began on March 19, is being recorded and webcast gavel-to-gavel by Courtroom View Network.
he parties did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The verdict marks a loss for C.R. Bard at its first trial in New Jersey, where the company's headquarters are located and numerous pelvic-mesh related lawsuits are consolidated.
Out of the roughly 30 pelvic mesh cases to go to trial in state and federal court since the first trial in 2012, only three have involved C.R. Bard implants.
An initial trial in California state court involving the Avaulta device ended in a $5.5 million verdict in 2012, and a federal jury in West Virginia returned a $2 million verdict in an Avaulta case in 2013. A trial in Missouri state court involving the Bard Align and Boston Scientific’s “Solyx” implant ended in a defense verdict in 2016.
The same attorney who lead Bard’s defense in that Missouri trial, Lori Cohen of Greenberg Traurig, is representing the company in this current case. Cohen is based in the firm’s Atlanta office.
McGinnis is represented by Adam Slater of Mazie Slater Katz Freeman Roseland, a New Jersey-based firm. Slater represented plaintiffs in the only two previous pelvic mesh trials in New Jersey, which both involved implants manufactured by Johnson & Johnson's Ethicon subsidiary and ended in plaintiff verdicts.
Both of those trials were recorded by CVN, in addition to the previous Bard trial in Missouri.
CVN also previously recorded pelvic mesh trials in Texas, California and Massachusetts, which are all available to subscribers as part of CVN’s one-of-a-kind online video library of gavel-to-gavel civil jury trials.
The current trial in New Jersey is taking place before Bergen County Superior Court Judge James DeLuca.
The case is captioned Mary McGinnis and Thomas Walsh McGinnis v. C.R. Bard Inc., et al., case number BER-L-17543-14.
http://blog.cvn.com/breaking-c.r.-bard-hit-with-33m-verdict-at-1st-new-jersey-pelvic-mesh-trial-punitive-damage-phase-to-follow
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N.J. Jury Awards Plaintiffs $33 Million in C.R. Bard Transvaginal Mesh Case
Apr 12, 2018 | HarrisMartin Publishing
A New Jersey state jury awarded a plaintiff in a C.R. Bard pelvic mesh case $33 million in compensatory damages after determining that the company did not warn the plaintiff’s doctors of the device’s potential risks.
On April 12, the jury handed down the verdict on the first day of deliberations following a four-week trial presided over by Judge James DeLuca. The jury awarded the plaintiff $23 million in compensatory damages, and her husband $10 million.
In 2009, plaintiff Mary McGinnis was implanted with a Bard Avaulta Support system to treat pelvic organ prolapse, and the Align
Access to full text unavailable – subscription required. For full story: https://harrismartin.com/article/23384/nj-jury-awards-plaintiffs-33-million-in-cr-bard-transvaginal-mesh-case/
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Doctor says woman’s osteoarthritis not asymptomatic in C.R. Bard mesh trial
Apr 12, 2018 | Legal Newsline
By John Sammon
A noted orthopedic surgeon maintained that a woman suing New Jersey-based C.R. Bard over allegations that a pelvic implant device caused pain experienced issues because of arthritis, not the implant.
Streaming video coverage of the trial in the Superior Court of New Jersey - Bergen County was provided to Legal Newsline by Courtroom View Network.
Mary McGinnis, 70, of North Carolina, filed suit over the C.R. Bard mesh pelvic implant devices called Avaulta and Align, that were installed into her pelvic region in 2009. The suit states the devices caused unnecessary tissue inflammation, stabbing burning pain, and had to be removed in subsequent surgeries that caused further harm to McGinnis.
Made of clear polypropylene, the Avaulta device looks like a small central mesh with four thin connecting arms and comes in a box kit for use.
The suit also states C.R. Bard ignored health warnings without proper clinical background study and went ahead and offered the products on the market beginning in 2007.
From the start of the trial, the defendant contended McGinnis had a long-time progressive arthritic condition of the back, hip and spine that pre-dated the implant surgery and resulted in the painful symptoms.
Adam Slater of Mazie, Slater, Katz & Freeman in Roseland, New Jersey, the attorney for McGinnis, asked Heller on April 10 if degenerative back and hip conditions could “coexist” with the pain but not be the cause of the pain.
“That is a possibility,” Heller said.
“We know her pain wasn’t due to degenerative changes,” Slater said. “It was something else like muscular, right?”
“That’s not true. You don’t get leg pain running down to your foot from a muscle,” Heller answered.
“Pain can be caused by something other than arthritis, correct?” Slater asked.
“That is correct,” Heller answered.
“You’re not blaming mesh erosion through the vaginal wall on an orthopedic condition, correct?” Slater asked.
“Correct,” Heller said.
However, under cross-examination, Heller told Lori Cohen of Greenberg Traurig, attorney for C.R. Bard, he thought McGinnis’ condition was related to arthritis.
“Clearly it (symptoms) has something to do with the lumbar spine,” he said. “Possibly to some degree with the SI (sacroiliac) joints and has a lot to do with the hips.”
“Mr. Slater said osteoarthritis is asymptomatic (without symptoms), do you have an opinion?” Cohen asked.
“It is clearly not asymptomatic,” Heller answered.
The defendant produced a number of filmed depositions of C.R. Bard employees who served at the time of the 2009 implant.
Jonathan Conta, former senior director of marketing for the firm, said the company would never implant a product it knew to be unsafe.
“Knowing about the potential safety risk was important to you in your role as a marketing manager,” Cohen said.
“Correct,” Conta said.
Michael Hennick, former quality engineer for C.R. Bard, said the number of complications with the company’s Avaulta product, a percentage rating the number of products shipped versus complaints during a three-year period around 2009, was “extremely low.”
He also described the Align product complaints at 0.01 percent, or “very low.”
“All that stuff, hip and back pain, is in the orthopedic realm, not the vaginal realm,” said Dr. John Heller of Atlanta.
https://legalnewsline.com/stories/511387690-doctor-says-woman-s-osteoarthritis-not-asymptomatic-in-c-r-bard-mesh-trial
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Ill. Federal Judge Denies Post-Verdict Motions in Transvaginal Mesh Case
Apr 12, 2018 | HarrisMartin Publishing
An Illinois federal judge has denied Ethicon and Johnson & Johnson’s motion for a judgment as a matter of law following a jury’s award of $55,000 in compensatory damages to a plaintiff who alleges she was injured by a Gynecare TVT Obturator System transvaginal mesh device.
In a March 23 order, Judge Matthew F. Kennelly found the jury’s determination that defendants negligently misrepresented the device’s safety did not contradict its finding for the defendants on the negligence and strict liability claims.
The judge also denied the plaintiff’s motion for a new trial on the negligence and strict liability ...
Access to full text unavailable – subscription required. For full story: https://harrismartin.com/article/23381/ill-federal-judge-denies-post-verdict-motions-in-transvaginal-mesh-case/
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