Washington, DCAs transvaginal mesh litigation moves forward in the courts, women - and their partners in some cases - are still filing complaints against a number of manufacturers. By the end of March, about 40,000 transvaginal mesh lawsuits had been filed.
In early February, LawyersandSettlements reported TVM lawsuits heating up. Now they are even hotter.
At the end of February, a jury in New Jersey awarded Linda Gross and her husband a further $7.8 million in punitive damages on top of the original $3.35 million originally awarded in the first bellwether case against Ethicon and Johnson & Johnson. (The first verdict among approximately 1,800 vaginal mesh cases pending in New Jersey against Ethicon resulted in a $3.35 million settlement for a South Dakota woman.)
And on April 4, a TVM victim was awarded $1.2 million by a Dallas jury in another lawsuit against Ethicon and Johnson & Johnson(Batiste v. McNabb, No. 12-14350, District Court for the 95th Judicial District, Dallas County Texas [Dallas]).
Needless to say, this is extremely good news for TVM victims and their families.
Because there are so many transvaginal mesh lawsuits nationwide, most cases have been consolidated into multidistrict litigation or MDL. This type of litigation occurs when a large number of cases have similar issues and complaints; they are combined and tried under one judge. For instance, American Medical Systems recently agreed to settle a number of cases for about $54.5 million and it will likely agree to another
settlement of about 6,000 cases currently awaiting trial.
More than 11,000 TVM lawsuits filed against Boston Scientific Corp. involving its Pinnacle Pelvic Floor Kit and other mesh implants are moving forward in the federal MDL underway in U.S. District Court, Southern District of West Virginia. On April 23, the Court had established deadlines for the completion of written discovery, motions practice and more regarding the consolidated trial of five vaginal mesh lawsuits involving Boston Scientific’s mesh, according to court documents. The trial is slated for September 29, 2014 (Case No. 2:13-cv-07965).
Attorneys anticipate all trials to occur sometime in 2014, and with settlements such as those above, the decision to continue with litigation or settle is becoming clearer.
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