Johnson & amp; Johnson (NYSE:JNJ)’ De Puy wins implant case

Northern, WI 04/17/2013 (avauncer) - Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) (Closed: $83.44, Up by: 2.12%)’s De Puy unit had a victory of sorts in the trial of an Illinois woman’s claim that her health had been harmed metal-on-metal implant that had been designed by the company. The jury in a Chicago State Court returned its verdict in favor of the company after a deliberation of a little over one day. The plaintiff, Carol Strum’s lawyers had asked to be awarded a minimum of $5 million. The verdict had not been a unanimous one but majority of the jurors had sided with De Puy while the minority had voted in favor of the plaintiff. The latter’s case had not been strong enough.

The second in line
Almost 11,000 such cases have been filed in the United States and the Strum case has been the second to go on trial. On March 8 the J&J unit had been asked to pay compensatory charges to the tune of $8.3 million as a Los-Angeles jury had found the design of the ASR XL hip implant to be a faulty one and that the company had failed to inform patients and their doctors about its associated risks. The world’s largest healthcare products manufacturer is based in New Brunswick, New Jersey. The DePuy spokesperson, Lorie Gawreluk said that that the company had been responsible and appropriate in its actions regarding the product as well as the program that addressed medical costs that were related to its recall.

High failure rate
In August 2010, 93,000 implants had been recalled and it had been reported that 12 percent of them had failed within a period of five years. In Australia, 44 percent had failed in seven years. The 54-year-old Strum had got her implant in 2008 which had been replaced after three years. Her lawyers told the jury that the cobalt-chromium implant had shed metal fragments into her body, poisoned her tissue and sent metal ions into her blood stream.

On the other hand, the defense lawyers had said that Strum suffered from hypersensitivity to the hip implant and subsequently had to have it be replaced. The punitive damage plea that her lawyers put forth was also rejected. Illinois alone has 500 pending cases against DePuy.