A Texas federal judge has ruled that the $500 million jury award should be reduced to $151 million after his review of Texas law. The Texas legislature passed “tort reform” laws a few years ago to protect corporations from consumer lawsuits even if the company acted recklessly or it they put profits ahead of safety. The original jury verdict would have awarded five plaintiffs injured by Johnson & Johnson’s subsidiary Depuy $140 million in compensatory damages and $360 million in punitive damages.
The judge did rule against Johnson & Johnson’s request for a new trial in the defective hip case.
DePuy stopped selling the Pinnacle brand hip implants in 2013, because doctors would no longer buy metal on metal hip implants. DePuy paid out $2.5 billion in 2013 to settle over 7,000 lawsuits relating to another faulty metal-on-metal hip implant, the DePuy ASR, which had been the subject of a recall. Together, Johnson & Johnson and DePuy are facing over 8,000 additional Pinnacle lawsuits relating to defective hip implants.
The Pinnacle hip implant has faced lawsuits due to its faulty design including metal-on-metal joint socket design. The friction resulting from the metal-on-metal design of the implants can cause the devices to release metal ions into the blood, resulting in painful and sometimes permanent injuries, such as bone erosion and even tissue death.
There have been a number of artificial hip implant recalls including the DePuy ASR Acetabular & Resurfacing System, Stryker Rejuvenate and ABG II, Smith & Nephew R3 Acetabular System, Wright Conserve Plus and Profemur Z Hip Stem and the Zimmer Durom Acetabular Component.
Our firm is continuing to file lawsuit on behalf of people with failed hip implants.