New York, NYCovidien, a transvaginal mesh manufacturer, has agreed to settle some of 11,000 claims regarding its transvaginal mesh devices, Reuters reported. It is believed that Covidien mainly supplied C.R. Bard with mesh products, which would inlcude Bard’s once-popular Avaulta.
Covidien filed a report in July 2014 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission stating that two of its subsidiaries supplied transvaginal mesh products to an unnamed manufacturer involved in the mesh litigation, and Covidien is indemnifying that manufacturer on certain claims. Covidien indicated that the manufacturer and product was Bard’s Avaulta pelvic mesh.
The first Bard trial, a federal bellwether case, was brought in 2013 by Donna Cisson, who complained of chronic pain after her Bard Avaulta Plus mesh was implanted in 2009. The jury agreed that she had suffered permanent damages and awarded Cisson $250,000 for pain and suffering, and $1,750,000 for punitive damages. Bard argued that the damages should be mitigated because she did not follow doctor’s orders to lose weight or use estrogen cream. The jury took 12 hours to decide that the Avaulta was defective in both its design and in a failure to warn her implanting physician.
Judge Goodwin denied Bard’s request for a new trial. The second C.R Bard bellwether case was slated to start a few days after Cisson’s verdict but Bard and plaintiff Debra Wise settled just hours before the trial was set to begin. Almost 11,000 Bard transvaginal mesh cases are pending in the federal court system.
Last December Judge Goodwin denied Bard’s request to delay its transvaginal mesh trial, saying he could not “imagine a corporation facing potentially billions of dollars in verdicts wouldn’t find it advisable to try to achieve a settlement for a much lesser sum.”
JD Supra reported that Judge Goodwin has ordered that two large waves of Bard cases be prepared to be “trial ready.” And a third wave of cases was proposed for some time in 2015, including 298 cases involving problems with the Bard Avaulta Plus Anterior Support System, Avaulta Plus Posterior Support System, Avaulta Solo Anterior Synthetic Support System or Avaulta Solo Posterior Synthetic Support System.
Covidien was bought last year by Medtronic for $42.9 billion in cash and stock. Here is the Medtronic filing. This might be good news for thousands and thousands of women implanted with Bard`s and Covidien`s transvaginal mesh.
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