News & Resources
DePuy/Johnson & Johnson Hit with $497.6 Million Jury Verdict in Second Pinnacle Hip Implant Trial
Five plaintiffs who suffered severe injuries from their DePuy Pinnacle metal hip replacement devices won a huge jury trial last month in Texas federal court against DePuy Orthopedics (a division of Johnson & Johnson). This was the second case to go to trial in the U.S. involving the DePuy Pinnacle hip implant device system.
In the recent trial, the five plaintiffs’ individual lawsuits were consolidated into one case for the purposes of trial. Each plaintiff was implanted with the Pinnacle hip implant system, and all five plaintiffs suffered similar types of personal injuries including pain, early hip revision surgery, bone and tissue damage, elevated metal ion levels in their blood, and other problems.
After a two-month trial and six days of deliberations, the jury ordered DePuy and Johnson & Johnson to pay $497.6 million ($360 million was punitive damages). Plaintiffs’ attorneys were able to successfully argue the defendants knew about design flaws of the Pinnacle hip implant and the potential risks to the public, yet continued to aggressively market and sell the device without providing adequate warnings to physicians or patients. The verdict will be appealed, and the company denies the Pinnacle hip system has a defective design.
The Pinnacle hip implant system has been implanted in thousands of patients across the country. It is estimated that more than 8,000 Pinnacle lawsuits are pending in the Multi-District Litigation proceedings in federal court in Dallas, Texas and in other parts of the U.S. Although the Pinnacle devices have never been recalled, DePuy recalled its line of defective ASR hip implants in 2010. In 2013, DePuy/J&J announced an agreement to pay at least $2.5 billion to resolve thousands of DePuy ASR hip implant lawsuits. Experts predict that the company will settle the vast majority of the Pinnacle lawsuits, but that has not yet occurred.
Advising Injured Hip Implant Patients
Civil lawsuits involving medical device companies are complex and require extensive experience and a dedicated team. For more than three decades, the attorneys at Alley Clark & Greiwe have handled large medical device litigation claims on behalf of injured plaintiffs.
Please schedule a free consultation with one of our attorneys if you or a loved one suffered a failure of a metal-on-metal hip device system.
