Johnson & Johnson Settles Thousands of Transvaginal Mesh Claims with $120M Payment
Johnson & Johnson has recently settled what looks like between 2,000 and 3,000 lawsuits for damages resulting from the use of their transvaginal mesh (TVM) products. Johnson & Johnson is the parent company of TVM manufacturer and distributor Ethicon. The settlement addresses only a portion of the currently active lawsuits against Johnson & Johnson; according to a regulatory filing, the company still must contend with some 42,400 cases filed by those seriously injured by its dangerous products. The individual awards which the thousands of plaintiffs can expect to recover from this settlement were not made public.
In 2011, Johnson & Johnson began facing lawsuits based on claims that implantation of TVM manufactured by Ethicon can shrink or erode once implanted, causing organ failure, severe long-term pain, and sexual dysfunction in patients. In 2012, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ordered Johnson & Johnson, as well as other manufacturers of TVM such as Boston Scientific and Bard, to begin conducting research on rates of organ failure or other complications among patients who had received the TVM implants. Johnson & Johnson took several of Ethicon’s lines of TVM off the U.S. market in June 2012.
This is the first instance where the company has settled a large number of claims simultaneously. A number of individual lawsuits against Johnson & Johnson have already progressed to trial. These include one case pursued by a California woman who was awarded $5.7 million in damages after a TVM device eroded inside of her after implantation. Johnson & Johnson is currently in the midst of an appeal in a New Jersey court after a jury awarded a victim of TVM $11.5 million in compensatory and punitive damages.
If you or someone you know has had a surgery where Ethicon Transvaginal Mesh was used, and has incurred medical expenses or experienced pain and suffering as a result, contact the experienced Los Angeles defective medical device attorneys at Magaña, Cathcart & McCarthy for a consultation on your case, at 310-553-6630.
