$247M Verdict for Plaintiffs In DePuy Pinnacle Hip Replacement Trial

Dallas, TXA $247 million verdict has been awarded against the maker of DePuy’s Pinnacle line of metal-on-metal hip implants, DePuy Orthopaedics Inc, and its parent company Johnson & Johnson (J&J), with $90 million in punitive damages against J&J and $78 million in punitive damages against DePuy. The settlement is the third, consecutive multi-million dollar verdict delivered in this multidistrict litigation.

The multi-million dollar verdict will settle claims made in this bellwether trial against DePuy’s Pinnacle hip replacements that the implants are essentially defective. The jury, hearing the case in Dallas, unanimously found J&J and DePuy liable for a series of design and manufacturing defects, fraud and deceptive business practices. Further, they found both defendants acted with wanton, reckless or malicious conduct.


More than $77 million was awarded for past and future medical expenses and pain and suffering to the six individual plaintiffs, each of whom is from New York. Additionally, the jury awarded four of the plaintiffs’ spouses damages for loss of consortium, totaling $1.7 million.

The trial took two months, and is the fourth bellwether case in multidistrict litigation that includes more than 9,000 cases, all alleging design defects in DePuy’s Pinnacle Ultamet line of metal-on-metal hip implants.

The jurors heard the six plaintiffs tell of their suffering resulting from a range of injuries, including severe tissue damage that caused permanent muscle loss, intense pain, loss of hip movement and walking with a permanent limp. All six plaintiffs claimed that the Pinnacle product shed microscopic metal ions into their bodies, a phenomenon known as metallosis. They alleged J&J and DePuy didn’t warn surgeons about these side effects, which could have been avoided with a safer design.

Specifically, the jury found J&J and DePuy liable for design defect, negligent design, inadequate warning, manufacturing defect, negligent manufacture, negligent misrepresentation, intentional misrepresentation to the surgeons who performed the initial hip implant surgeries on the plaintiffs, fraudulent concealment from the plaintiffs and from the surgeons and deceptive business practices as to the plaintiffs and the surgeons.

Additionally, J&J was found liable for negligent undertaking of a duty to provide services to DePuy and for aiding and abetting DePuy in its tortious conduct. The jury did not find J&J or DePuy liable for intentional misrepresentation to the plaintiffs.

The consolidated cases are Alicea et al. v. DePuy Orthopaedics Inc. et al., case number 3:15-cv-03489; Barzel v. DePuy et al., case number 3:16-cv-01245; Kirschner v. DePuy et al., case number 3:16-cv-01526; Miura v. DePuy et al., case number 3:13-cv-04119; Stevens v. DePuy et al., case number 3:14-cv-01776; and Stevens v. DePuy et al., case number 3:14-cv-02341, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.