Irvine DePuy Lawyer

As the American population grows increasingly older and legions of senior citizens seek to lead more active lives, hip and other joint replacement surgeries have become extremely common, not to mention popular.

Long regarded as a leader in the design and manufacture of joint implants, DePuy Orthopaedics has secured for itself a significant share of the market.

However, the company’s years of success have not been free from controversy, with its ASR Hip Resurfacing System, the Pinnacle Hip System, and the ASR XL Acetabular System all becoming the subject of substantial federal and state-level litigation. The lawsuits that have been filed by injured patients have already cost DePuy billions of dollars, and victims of these systems continue to file claims.

If you have suffered complications and harm stemming from these or other joint replacement devices, an Irvine product liability lawyer, particularly Irvine DePuy lawyer, is ready to aid in your fight for fair financial compensation.

Metal-on-Metal Device Systems

Initially heralded as a truly innovative solution to previously high device failure rates, metal-on-metal joint construction has been extremely disappointing to physicians and patients alike.

Instead of answering problems posed by prior generation devices, the metal-on-metal systems produced by DePuy actually introduced a series of new, even more, serious concerns as identified by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), such as:

  • Bone fractures near implant sites
  • Systemic infection
  • Loosening of joints
  • Metallosis
  • Dislocation of joints
  • Reductions in mobility
  • Increased risk of cancer

Joint replacement patients who have experienced these potentially severe complications have frequently been forced to undergo painful, inconvenient and expensive revision procedures, with many such individuals never fully achieving relief.

For this reason, a growing number of affected individuals have decided to pursue monetary compensation and accountability from DePuy through the use of a DePuy attorney in Irvine.

Research and Concerns

Once adverse event reports related to DePuy joint replacement systems began to mount at the FDA, medical researchers, federal regulators and the manufacturer itself began to take action. 2010 saw a self-initiated recall of both DePuy ASR hip replacement systems, with the company publicly acknowledging that they had a failure rate that was noticeably higher than typical.

Research published in renowned medical journal, The Lancet, found that metal-on-metal systems offer poor implant survival and a study in the British Orthopaedic Association revealed that within six years of initial implantation, roughly 50 percent of certain categories of metal-on-metal devices required replacement. With pressure growing from all stakeholders, in 2013, DePuy also decided to discontinue sales of its Pinnacle metal-on-metal systems.

Damages

Because the number of similar lawsuits related to DePuy joint replacement systems swelled so significantly in recent years, multidistrict litigation was created to provide coordinated oversight and facilitate settlement discussions. DePuy and its parent firm, Johnson & Johnson, agreed to settlements designed to compensate those harmed by its ASR XL System and ASR Resurfacing System.

The company eventually designated roughly $4 billion for the settlement of thousands of individual claims.

Additional sums were set aside later in order to resolve additional claims, and while the deadlines to participate in these specific agreements have passed, DePuy continues to review claims and victims still have the right to file suit on their own behalf.

Multidistrict litigation related to Pinnacle implants is ongoing in US District Court for the Northern District of Texas, with DePuy attorneys in Irvine continuing to assess new potential cases.

Contacting an Attorney

The failure of a joint replacement implant can cause pain, mobility loss, and a host of other potentially deadly complications. If you or a loved one have experienced injuries of this type due to a DuPuy replacement, it is very important to contact an Irvine DePuy lawyer as soon as possible to ensure you have the opportunity to seek justice and to receive the compensation you deserve for your hardships.

Although an attorney understands that no amount of money will fix the damage done and pain caused, they know that compensation can help make life easier, such as by covering expensive medical bills.

Additionally, an Irvine DePuy lawyer can ultimately provide a person with invaluable insights and essential guidance in their case that they would not have otherwise.