In short
Bloomberg has reported on proceedings in another of the likely 10,750 cases to be brought against J&J DePuy over the metal-on-metal ASR hip implant. The full article can be found here, and details the case of Strum v. DePuy, 2011-L-9352, taking place in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Law Division (Chicago).
Background
This one is hot on the heels of Kransky vs J&J DePuy, in which the plaintiff was awarded $8.3M for a combination of medical expenses and damages for pain and suffering. It’s early days in the case of Carol Strumsky vs the company, but the tone has been set with the testimony of Andrew Ekdahl, DePuy’s president. As reported it seems it’s mostly about language at the moment. The starting point from Ekdahl on the reason for the recall was his assertion that “The revision rate was not acceptable”.
DePuy’s attorney claims the company recalled the product based on high revision rates being reported from the UK, and described it as performing below “clinical expectations”. The plaintiff’s attorney however has cited a DePuy internal document, signed by and circulated among top official just before the recall, which had a tick in the box marked “defective product that would affect product performance and/or could cause health problems”.
Does that statement form an acknowledgement by DePuy that its product was indeed defective? Absolutely not, according to its attorney in suggesting that “many factors contribute to the overall revision rate” and “We absolutely didn’t say the product is a defective product. We said, ‘We don’t know. We need to figure this out.’”
The case continues.
Source: Bloomberg News
