MA Registers Nearly 6,000 Covidien Hernia Mesh Lawsuits

MA Registers Nearly 6,000 Covidien Hernia Mesh Lawsuits

Introduction

The parties report that nearly 6,000 complaints have already been filed by individuals who have suffered injuries after receiving the hernia repair products, with the majority pending in Massachusetts state court, in advance of a meeting this week before the U.S. District Judge recently appointed to preside over all federal Covidien hernia mesh lawsuits.

Each lawsuit contains similar allegations, indicating that plaintiffs experienced complications after receiving defective polypropylene hernia mesh products sold in recent years, such as Covidien Parietex and Covidien Symbotex.

Plaintiffs report severe abdominal pain, infections, organ perforations, erosion, and other issues, which frequently necessitate risky hernia revision surgery to remove the defective mesh from their bodies.

Given the common factual and legal issues raised in complaints filed in U.S. District Courts across the country, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation decided to centralise the Covidien hernia mesh lawsuits in June 2022, transferring all cases to U.S. District Judge in Massachusetts for coordinated discovery and a series of early trial dates.

According to recent filings made in advance of an October 25 status conference, the parties report that there are currently 170 lawsuits pending in the federal Covidien MDL (multidistrict litigation). However, another 5,700 claims have been filed in state court in Massachusetts, where the manufacturers' headquarters are located.

The judge has established a "bellwether" process as part of the coordinated management of the litigation, in which a group of representative cases will be prepared for early trial dates to help the parties gauge the relative strengths and weaknesses of their claims, as well as how juries are likely to respond to certain evidence and testimony that will be repeated throughout the litigation.

On October 14, plaintiffs and defendants filed competing proposals for the timeline for preparing these MDL bellwether cases. The parties indicated that they had reached an agreement on the majority of issues concerning a proposed scheduling order, electronic stored information (ESI), and a proposed confidentiality and protective order. The parties, however, disagree on the completion of general corporate discovery for the initial bellwether cases, as well as coordination with the Massachusetts state court litigation.

Plaintiffs requested that discovery be completed by April 8, 2024 in a proposal submitted on October 14, while defendants requested that discovery be completed in less than a year, by September 30, 2023.

Plaintiffs claim the proposal is unreasonable and that they have made concessions on a number of factors in the proposals, but the defendants were more obstinate.

The plaintiffs wrote in their filing that defendants did not share Plaintiffs' compromising spirit. Rather, in exchange for adopting Plantiffs' reasonable date, Defendants proposed a draconian coordination procedure with the state court proceeding that would prejudice all plaintiffs in this MDL. To be sure, the only question the Court must answer for the scheduling order CMO is whether Plaintiffs receive less than a year to prepare a major MDL case for trial or the more reasonable time frame of 18 months proposed by Plaintiffs. The Plaintiffs should be given 18 months to conduct discovery.

While the outcomes of these bellwether trials will not be binding on other plaintiffs in the litigation, they may help push the parties toward hernia mesh settlements, avoiding the need for hundreds of individual trials.

More than 15,400 Bard hernia mesh lawsuits were centralized in the Southern District of Ohio, another 3,600 Ethicon Physiomesh lawsuits were centralised in the Northern District of Georgia, and 3,251 Atrium C-Qur lawsuits were centralised in the District of New Hampshire. Many of those claims were settled before the first jury trial.