DePuy Orthopedics, a unit of Johnson & Johnson, offered to pay$200,000 per settlement case, according to media reports. DePuy is currently facing more than 10,000 lawsuits, which mean it is willing to pay a total of $2 billion to settle the cases. However, most of the plaintiffs� legal counsels rejected the offer because it was not enough to compensate for the lifetime damages it has caused their clients with their alleged defective ASR hip implants.
The most common complains of those who sued Johnson& Johnson is when they are still suffering from pain, much worst prior to the surgery, they are immobilized by joint dislocations, infections and bone fracture. Some also alleged that that the metal debris from the hip prosthesis damages their tissues around the joint and what�s alarming is that the shredding of tiny debris may get into the bloodstream and may damage the internal organs, cause necrosis or may even poison the patient due to high level of toxicity in the blood.
This year, the first case being tackled in court out of the 10,000 complaints is the case of 65-year-old Loren Kransky, a former prison guard from Montana, who claims that he is suffering from the dangerous side effects of his defective hip implant that was implanted in 2007 and undergone a painful revision in 2009. Last week, the Los Angeles Superior Court jurors has already heard both sides closing arguments of their lawyers.
Kransky�s case alone has demanded DePuy to pay $5.3 million of compensatory damages and $179 punitive damages which will be amounting with a total of 184 million dollars.
If Kransky�s case wins, DePuy will be in hot waters and with the fear that this might cause the downfall of its mother company, Johnson & Johnson, which is the world�s biggest seller of health-care products. The company is expected to shell-out more than the $2 billion in total of settlement amount it first offered among their 10,000 complainants.
Base on reports, most cases that are pending are coming from Toldeo, Ohio with 7,240 lawsuits while in the California state court in San Francisco has had 2,000 cases pending. However, there are also other cases filed in several states around the United States.
It was in 2010 that J&J made a voluntarily recall of its 93,000 DePuy all-metal hip implants worldwide, including the 33,000 hips in the United States. Studies show that within five years, 12 percent of this hip implants has failed. For more related cases on Hip Replacement Lawsuits, check hipreplacementlawsuitcenter.com
Author is currently working as a legal medicine researcher focusing on hip replacements surgery cases. One of the major topics that she is working on is about how patients may be compensated after suffering from defective hip implants.
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