Port Catheter Injury Lawsuits Against AngioDynamics To Be Selected for Bellwether Trials

Lawyers will choose 18 AngioDynamics port catheter lawsuits to serve as potential early test trials, to gauge how juries respond to claims of infections, migration and thrombosis injuries.

The U.S. District Judge presiding over all AngioDynamics port catheter lawsuits filed throughout the federal court system has approved a process for selecting the first bellwether trials, which will test claims that the company’s drug and fluid delivery ports were defectively designed.

AngioDynamics port catheters are commonly used in patients who require frequent chemotherapy or other intravenous treatments, consisting of a subdermal port connected to a catheter. However, the manufacturer faces at least 128 product liability lawsuits over alleged problems with it’s line of port catheter implants, including the SmartPort, Vortex Port, Xcela Port and other models.

Each claim contains similar allegations that the ports are defectively designed and prone to serious complications. Users have reported experiencing painful and devastating injuries from catheter fractures, infections, device migration and thrombosis, which often result in the need for additional surgery to remove or replace the failed implant.

A year ago, all federal AngioDynamics port catheter lawsuits were centralized in the Southern District of California under U.S. District Judge Jinsook Ohta, who is overseeing coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings.

The allegations raised in the AngioDynamics claims are virtually identical to those brought in nearly 2,000 Bard PowerPort lawsuits filed against C.R. Bard, which are proceeding as part of a separate MDL in the District of Arizona. Both sets of claims involve similar design defects, including catheter fractures and migration.

Judge Ohta is currently overseeing preparations for a series of early “bellwether” trials, designed to gauge how juries may respond to key evidence and expert testimony that will shape claims across the MDL and potentially pave the way for port catheter settlement negotiations.

In September, Judge Ohta ordered the parties to jointly develop a process for selecting the most representative cases to serve as potential port catheter bellwether trials. Those port catheter lawsuits will then go through additional discovery and preparations for early trial dates.

The parties responded with a bellwether selection proposal on October 1. The judge reviewed the proposal and issued a case management order (PDF) on October 14 laying out the selection process.

Port Catheter Bellwether Selection Process

The order calls for the parties to meet on February 6, 2026, to determine how the three main injuries reported, including infections, fractures and thrombosis, will be distributed among the selected cases, with a joint statement on the distribution due by March 2.

Judge Ohta calls for the parties to select nine cases each, creating an initial pool of 18 cases by June 5, 2026. Those cases would then go through additional case-specific discovery.

All plaintiffs selected for the initial pool will have to complete a Plaintiff Fact Sheet (PFS) by July 15, 2026, with a Defendant Fact Sheet in response to each case completed by September 1. The order calls for preliminary fact discovery for those cases to be completed by November 20, 2026.

By December 11, the parties will exchange a list of five cases each for a Bellwether Pool of 10 cases. Each party will be allowed to strike one case from the other side’s list for a total of eight port catheter lawsuits to move forward toward final bellwether trial selections.

Following coordinated discovery and bellwether trials, if the parties are unable to reach any AngioDymanics settlement agreements, Judge Ohta may remand each case back to the U.S. District Court where it was originally filed for a future trial date. However, pretrial proceedings in the AngioDyamics port catheter MDL will likely take several years.