$240M Wright Hip Implant MDL Settlement Reached

Santa Clara, CA: A $240 million settlement has been reached in multidistrict product liability litigation over defective Wright hip implants. The settlement effectively ends five years of litigation brought by 1,300 claimants who alleged their Wright hip implants failed anywhere from 150 days to eight years following hip replacement surgery.

Wright Medical Group announced the settlement on behalf of its wholly-owned subsidiary, Wright Medical Technology. Two years ago Wright sold its hip and knee implant division that produced the allegedly defective replacement hip devices to a Chinese company.

Under the terms of the agreement, Wright will pay $170,000 to each claimant who received the Conserve Cup device. Additionally, the company will pay $120,000 to each claimant who received either a Dynasty or Lineage replacement hip. Further, Wright will establish a fund to reimburse patients who suffered "extraordinary injury" resulting from the failure of their hip implants.

According to court documents, the defect causing the failure of the hip implants was a metal-on-metal design that resulted in metal wear and shedding of metallic debris into surrounding tissue. This led to “metallosis”, a condition in which the tissue becomes inflamed and toxic, dissolving bone that anchored the implant. Ultimately, the metallosis led to failure of the implants.

The settlement affects multidistrict litigation now pending in federal court in Atlanta and consolidated litigation in Los Angeles Superior Court in California.

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Published on Nov-10-16