Cook Vena Cava Filter Lawsuits Selected for Bellwether Trial Discovery

A small group of inferior vena cava (IVC) filter lawsuits filed against Cook Medical have been selected for a bellwether discovery pool, which will be prepared for early trial dates that may begin late next year.

Since October 2014, all federal Cook Celect and Cook Gunther Tulip vena cava filter lawsuits have been consolidated before U.S. District Judge Richard L. Young in the Southern District of Indiana for coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings as part of an MDL, or multidistrict litigation.

Each of the complaints involve nearly identical allegations that plaintiffs experienced complications after the the small, spider like devices were implanted into the inferior vena cava to prevent a blood clot from traveling to the lungs and causing a pulmonary embolism. The retrievable filters have been linked to reports of problems where they moved out of position, punctured the vena cava or fractured, sending small pieces through the body to the heart or lungs.

There are currently about 200 Cook vena cava filter lawsuits pending before Judge Young for coordinated discovery and a series of “bellwether” trials, which are designed to help the parties gauge how juries may respond to certain evidence and testimony that could be repeated throughout a large number of cases.

As part of the pretrial proceedings in the MDL, Judge Young issued a case management order (PDF) in July, which called for each side to identify five lawsuits that will go through case-specific discovery over the coming months. Each side submitted their respective selections on October 5, and will conduct depositions and written discovery over the next six months.

By November 2, plaintiffs have been directed to submit a statement of special damages and to make a settlement demand in all ten Discovery Pool cases, after which Cook Medical will have sixty days to respond. If the cases do not resolve, it is expected that the parties will make presentations to the Court in mid-March 2016 about which Discovery Pool cases should be scheduled for Bellwether trials.

Four of the cases are expected to be prepared to go before juries after September 15, 2016, with each trial expected to take 15 to 20 days. While the outcome of these Cook vena cava filter bellwether trials will not binding on other claims in the litigation, they are designed to help the parties negotiate IVC filter settlements that may help avoid the need for hundreds of individual trials to be scheduled throughout the U.S.

Similar claims are also pending in hundreds of Bard Recovery filter lawsuits and Bard G2 filter lawsuits filed over other retrievable vena cava filters manufactured by C.R. Bard.

Last month, similar MDL proceedings were established fo those cases, centralizing the Bard vena cava filter cases before U.S. District Judge David G. Campbell in Arizona, where it is expected that a similar bellwether program will be established in the coming months.