Dallas jurors sent a powerful message for corporations that hide dangerous flaws in their products and fail to warn the public about their dangers.
After a two-month trial and a week of deliberations, jurors hit Johnson & Johnson with a $500 million verdict for injuries caused by its metal-on-metal DuPuy Pinnacle hip implants. Jurors found that the hip implants were defectively designed and that Johnson & Johnson failed to warn the public about the product’s risks. The verdict includes $140 in total compensatory damages and about $360 million in punitive damages.
The Pinnacle’s design flaws cause the devices to fail more frequently and quickly than expected, leading to injuries including tissue death, bone erosion and high levels of metal in their blood. With special expertise and a long history of successfully representing individuals who have been injured by dangerous and defective medical devices, Farrar & Ball is actively representing individuals who have been injured by the DePuy Pinnacle hip implant.
Writes Bloomberg: The Pinnacle cases have been consolidated before U.S. District Judge Ed Kinkeade in Dallas for pretrial information exchanges and test trials. Kinkeade agreed to combine five cases selected by plaintiffs’ lawyers in the most recent trial. About 170,000 DePuy hips were implanted after the devices went on the market in the U.S. in 2000, according to court filings.
In the most recent trial, plaintiffs said their DePuy hips leached cobalt and chromium material into their bloodstreams, leading to the hips’ failures and surgical removal. They claimed J&J officials knew their metal-on-metal design would cause such injuries but pushed ahead to rack up billions in sales.