Thursday, May 9, 2013

Second Bellwether Trial pushed back to September


For over 10,000 DePuy ASR lawsuits that were filed, so far two lawsuits were already decided.  The first one filed by Loren Kransky, in which the jury favored plaintiff and made Johnson & Johnson pay some $8.35 million for damages. Following Kransky’s case, a second DePuy ASR trial was set, deliberated and declared its verdict. Surprisingly, this time jury made a different decision. Johnson & Johnson was vindicated and shift its blame to the Food and Drug Administration. The twist was determined when defendant argued that FDA did a preliminary review and passed before they made the device available for public use.





Since state cases were consolidated into one proceeding, there are already two federal cases that were scheduled to commence. The second federal DePuy ASR trial was reportedly being pushed back to September this year. This has been the second pushed back order made by Judge David Katz under MDL. The first order was issued for Faye-Dorney Madgitz, postponing the start date from May 6 to June 3, 2013. The order was issued just three days after Judge David Katz postponed the start date of the Faye-Dorney Madgitz’s case.



Along with the pushed back order, Judge David Katz also set a deadline for both parties to disclose their witnesses that they will be facing before court. The deadline that was given to the parties (McCracken v. DePuy Orthopaedics, Case No.: 1:11-dp-20485 will be on early August of this year.



People are now anxious on what’s going to be the verdict of the first federal case because the decision may play a big factor for the succeeding federal DePuy ASR trials.