The first Johnson & Johnson DePuy hip implant lawsuit to go to trial has resulted in an $8.3 million jury award in the United States. The Los Angeles jury awarded the compensation to Loren “Bill” Kransky, a retired prison guard from Montana, after finding that the design of the ASR XL hip caused his injuries. This is the first of more than 10,000 lawsuits pending against the medical products maker in connection with a now-recalled artificial hip. As matters stand, 3,282 Irish patients were fitted with the defective DePuy ASR hip implants.
The evidence offered to the Court in Los Angeles was that the design of the metal on metal implant caused the cup and ball to strike against each other as a patient moved, resulting in the shedding of metallic debris. The debris inflamed and damaged tissue and bone, causing pain and, in some cases, permanent injuries to patients. In its decision, the Jury ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay the plaintiff, Loren Kransky, $338,000 to cover his medical expenses and $8 million to cover his pain and emotional suffering. While the circumstances of every case is different the physical capacity of clients who we represent in Ireland has been reduced significantly due to the failure of the hip implants and clients have the additional concern of the potential for metal ion toxicity due to erosion of chromium and cobalt from metal surfaces. It is not too late for DePuy patient to bring a case and we would urge people to contact us as soon as possible so that we can action a claim on their behalf.
DePuy Orthopaedics Inc., a division of Johnson & Johnson, announced a worldwide recall of two of its metal-on-metal hip replacement devices; the ASR XL acetabular total hip replacement the ASR hip resurfacing system on the 26th August 2010. Both hip implants were recorded as having “higher than expected failure rates”.
The problems with the two DePuy devices were known long before the recall. In Australia, the National Joint Replacement Registry (NJRR) reported in 2007 that data for the previous year showed that these devices had twice the risk of failure in comparison to similar devices. In 2008, the NJRR re-confirmed that these devices had a much higher than expected failure rate. Again, in 2009, the NJRR found the same failure results. In December 2009 DePuy Orthopaedics withdrew from the Australian market and in March 2010 DePuy issued an alert about the ASR implants. Despite these developments many Irish patients continued to be implanted with the DePuy devices until the recall of the device in Ireland in August 2010.
Those who believe their DePuy hip implant has injured them or caused them to suffer should know that they are not alone. We represent hundreds of Clients who have been affected by the DePuy ASR recall, many of who have already undergone revision surgery. We would encourage DePuy ASR hip implant recipients to contact our dedicated team who will help them to evaluate if they have a case.
