A Judge in California has denied Johnson & Johnson´s appeal for a new DePuy court case and allowed the jury´s decision in the case of Loren Kransky -v- DePuy Orthopedics to stand.
In March this year, a Los Angeles jury awarded former prison officer Loren Kransky $8.3 million in a DePuy hip compensation settlement after finding DePuy Orthopedics negligent for supplying the plaintiff with a faulty ASR XL Acetabular hip replacement.
Loren had developed health problems due to microscopic particles of chromium entering his bloodstream from the friction between the cup and ball of the metal-on-metal hip implant, and his case was brought forward ahead of the Multi District Litigation (MDL) being heard in Ohio because he was also suffering from terminal kidney cancer.
Johnson & Johnson – DePuy Orthopedics´ parent company – appealed the verdict and requested that a new DePuy court case be held on the grounds that “the court did not let the company tell the jury about the Food & Drug Administration’s review and clearance of the device”.
However, Judge J. Stephen Czuleger´s review of the appeal found that the claimant had provided sufficient evidence during the March court case to establish that the ASR XL Acetabular hip replacement was defective in design and upheld the jury´s original award.
Johnson & Johnson responded to Judge Czuleger´s ruling by filing a motion in the MDL being heard in Ohio, requesting that any awards of DePuy hip replacement compensation made in the case reflect injury compensation settlements in the company´s home state of Indiana – where awards of compensation settlements are typically much lower than the national average.
DePuy Orthopedics are also preparing to defend another MDL in Texas; where more than 4,000 claimants are seeking injury compensation for defects in DePuy´s Pinnacle hip replacement system. Although the first of the DePuy Pinnacle hip replacement compensation claims is not scheduled to be heard until September 2014, the company recently announced that it would stop producing the allegedly faulty Pinnacle hip replacement system in August.