Speculation is mounting that Johnson & Johnson has agreed to a huge financial settlement that could resolve thousands of law suits filed by patients in the USA injured by the flawed all metal hip replacement hip device.
The plan, which must win court approval, represents one of the largest pay-outs for product liability claims involving a medical device.
The agreement will include those patients who have already been forced to have the device, known as the Articular Surface Replacement, or A.S.R removed and replaced with another artificial hip.
The A.S.R hip was sold by DePuy until mid- 2010 when the company recalled it amid sharply rising early failure rates. The device which had a metal ball and a metal cup, sheds metallic debris as it wears, generating particles that have damaged tissue in some patients and caused infections.
Over 3,500 Irish patients have received the device and hundreds of law suits have been filed in the High Court here on behalf of patients claiming substantial damages.
Liam Moloney, a Healthcare Solicitor in Naas Co Kildare whose firm are acting on behalf of many of these patients said today “it is clear now that DePuy will inevitably have to try and settle these cases in Ireland . Of the two lawsuits that have gone to trial in the USA the company has lost one and won the other one but it is now facing the start of several new trials both in the USA, England and here in Ireland.
Mr Moloney added “Johnson and Johnson should immediately instruct it’s Irish Solicitors to commence settlement negotiations with the hundreds of Plaintiffs who have lodged High Court proceedings seeking damages to avoid them having to incur additional financial costs and the stress of on-going litigation.”
