$8.3 Million Verdict in Johnson & Johnson DePuy Hip Recall Lawsuit

$8.3 million dollars is the cost to Johnson & Johnson for designing a defective hip implant, says a jury today.  This is the first verdict in the U.S. against DePuy Orthopaedics and its parent company, Johnson & Johnson.  There are currently about 10,000 cases pending against the health care giant.

Jury Gives Extra Compensatory Damages, No Punitive Damages

The Los Angeles jury decided to give Loren Kransky $8.3 million in damages for his medical bills and his pain and suffering.  Kransky is a retired prison guard who suffered from high levels of metal in his blood from his bad ASR hip implants and needed revision surgery to replace them.  His lawyer, Brian Panish, asked the jury for $5.3 million in compensatory damages and got more than requested.  However, the jury’s verdict did not include punitive damages against Johnson & Johnson.  According to Bloomberg.com, Panish reacted by saying “this is the first day of reckoning for DePuy.  We’ve learned a lot from this trial.  We’ll get punitive damages in the next trial.”

J&J Should Have Settled Cases Years Ago Says Attorney

Johnson & Johnson is already planning to appeal the jury’s decision, saying that Kransky’s health and medical problems were to blame and not a design defect with the ASR implant. “It’s ridiculous that this case ever got this far,” says Altom Maglio, one of the nation’s leading attorneys representing patients in the ASR recall. “Johnson & Johnson should have settled the ASR cases years ago.”

The next trial against J&J was set to begin Monday in Chicago, but according to the court docket, a continuance was filed yesterday in the case of Strum vs. DePuy Orthopaedics.