Final Pretrial Conference in Bard PowerPort Lawsuit To Be Held April 9

Trial is scheduled to begin in late April 2026 for the first Bard PowerPort bellwether lawsuit, as the surviving family members of the plaintiff in the second selected case debate whether to move forward with a July 2026 trial date.

The U.S. District Judge overseeing all federal Bard PowerPort lawsuits will meet with plaintiffs and defendants early next month, to discuss final preparations for the first in a series of bellwether trials scheduled to begin on April 21, which could shape the outcomes for thousands of similar cases.

There are currently more than 3,000 product liability lawsuits pending in the federal court system against Becton Dickinson and C.R. Bard over the design of their controversial port catheter devices, which are used to create an injection site for repeated delivery of medications or fluids, such as during chemotherapy.

The Bard PowerPort systems consists of a small injection port where the needle is inserted and a polyurethane catheter that delivers the fluid into the vein. However, plaintiffs say that while the device was marketed as safe and effective, it is actually defectively designed, increasing the risk of port catheter infections, fractures and migration injuries.

Lawsuits brought by individuals throughout the U.S. now allege that the use of barium sulfate in the construction of the catheter causes premature breakdown, cracks and fractures in the catheter. Each of the claims raise similar allegations, indicating that the manufacturers knew about this problem, yet failed to change the design or provide adequate warnings to the medical community to be on the lookout for such problems.

Given common questions of fact and law, all federal Bard PowerPort lawsuits are consolidated in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, where Judge David G. Campbell is overseeing a multidistrict litigation (MDL) established to coordinate discovery and pretrial proceedings in the large number of claims.

Lawyers have spent months preparing a series of “bellwether” test cases for early trials under Judge Campbell’s direction. The trials will help the parties evaluate how a jury will digest the testimony, evidence and arguments that would likely be repeated throughout the litigation.

Last year, the Court selected six Bard PowerPort lawsuits to be readied for trial, with the first, involving claims by Robert Cook of Minnesota, scheduled to begin on April 21, 2026. It will be followed by additional bellwether trials currently expected to begin on July 7, August 18, October 13, December 1, and February 2, 2027. 

Bard PowerPort Lawsuit Trial Final Conference

On March 19, the parties met for a status conference, after which Judge Campbell issued a case management order (PDF) scheduling a final pretrial conference for the Cook trial for April 9.

Judge Campbell called on the parties to be prepared to identify sensitive files and testimony that need to be sealed, and told attorneys to turn in deposition designations by March 30. The judge also ordered plaintiffs and defendants to attempt to resolve any disputes over evidence admissibility before the trial, and to set forth any such conflicts in the joint Proposed Final Pretrial Order.

A day before the case management conference was held, the manufacturers filed a motion seeking to bifurcate the Cook trial (PDF) into two phases. The first would be for the jury to determine liability. During the second phase, the jury would be asked to decide on whether punitive damages are warranted, and if so, how much.

According to the motion, conducting the trial in this way would match Minnesota state law, where Cook is from and where his lawsuit originates, despite being consolidated with the other cases in Arizona for pretrial proceedings. Although all of the cases have been centralized, they remain individual claims that can be subject to some state laws.

Defendants argue that it will make the trial more fair and noted that Judge Cook had done the same during litigation involving Bard IVC filter lawsuits, which involved claims over another C.R. Bard implant that allegedly had a penchant for breaking, migrating out of position and causing pulmonary embolisms.

In his order, Judge Campbell indicated that the issue would be discussed and resolved at the final pretrial conference next month.

Second PowerPort Bellwether Trial to Proceed

After the Cook trial, the second Bard PowerPort lawsuit selected to go before a jury was filed by Wanda Miller, who died in early February 2026, while awaiting her day in court. Since her death came suddenly, and cancer left her uncommunicative, plaintiffs’ attorneys could not take a final deposition to preserve her testimony for the scheduled trial set to begin in July 2026.

To date, Miller’s family has not yet decided whether to move forward with the lawsuit as her heirs. This has raised questions as to whether the case should move forward as scheduled, be rescheduled, swapped with another claim or removed as a bellwether trial entirely.

In a joint memorandum (PDF) filed ahead of last week’s conference, plaintiffs called for the case to be removed from the bellwether pool entirely and replaced with another lawsuit. Defendants are calling for swapping the case with another in the trial order, giving the family more time to grieve and decide. However, they have indicated that the family should be forced to dismiss the case if they are not prepared to move forward with a bellwether trial.

Lawyers representing plaintiffs in the litigation say that the swap would cause serious scheduling issues with the lead attorney representing Ms. Miller. In addition, they indicate that the Miller case is no longer representative of most others in the litigation now that she has passed away. In addition, her claim that the Bard PowerPort caused a thrombosis injury is only repeated in 98 of the 3,042 active cases in the MDL.

In the order issued after the recent case management conference, Judge Campbell ruled that the trial will move forward as planned or must be dismissed. He ordered plaintiffs’ counsel to talk with the Miller family about whether they are willing to have the case tried in July. He gave the family until April 7 to decide, which means a decision would be prepared by the Cook final pretrial conference.

While these bellwether trials are being closely watched, they are not binding on the other cases. However, it is important for them to be representative of the litigation as a whole, because the outcomes could help the parties reach a Bard PowerPort lawsuit settlement agreement.

If no such agreement is reached once the bellwether trials and pretrial proceedings have been completed, Judge Campbell could begin remanding the cases back to their originating districts for individual trial dates.

In addition to the Bard PowerPort litigation, more than 300 similar Angiodynamics port catheter lawsuits claim that the company’s series of port catheters, including the Vortex Port, SmartPort and Xcela Port, suffer from the same barium sulfate problem. These cases have been consolidated in a separate MDL before U.S. Judge Jinsook Ohta in the Southern District of California, where she is expected to begin a bellwether process as well.

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