Bard Mesh Settlement Talks to be Facilitated by Special Master

The U.S. District Judge presiding over all federal vaginal mesh lawsuits has appointed a Special Master to facilitate settlement talks between C.R. Bard and women who allege the company’s products left them with painful and disfiguring injuries.

There are currently more than 70,000 product liability lawsuits filed throughout the federal court system involving complications with transvaginal mesh or bladder sling products made by various different companies, including Bard, American Medical Systems (AMS), Ethicon, Boston Scientific, Coloplast Corp., Cook Medical and Neomedic.

U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin is presiding over seven different federal multidistrict litigations (MDLs) established for claims against each manufacturer, which are designed to coordinate pretrial proceedings and resolve the large number of claims raising nearly identical allegations.

The Bard Avaulta MDL is the oldest of those pending before Judge Goodwin, with the first cases centralized before him in the Southern District of West Virginia in October 2010.

Despite a number of “bellwether” trials that resulted in multi-million dollar damage awards for plaintiffs, little progress has been made to reach large numbers of vaginal mesh settlements by most of the manufacturers.

Only AMS has settled the majority of claims involving their products, agreeing to pay about $1.6 billion to resolve more than 20,000 claims.

Judge Goodwin has previously expressed frustration with the lack of progress by other manufacturers in settling mesh cases, and recently held a two-day joint status conference, at which plaintiff leadership attorneys and representatives of each defendant with full settlement authority appeared before the Court.

In a pretrial order (PDF) issued on February 12, Judge Goodwin appointed Ellen Reisman to serve as a Special Master in the Bard litigation, to work with the manufacturer and plaintiffs’ lawyers to help facilitate settlement talks.

“[T]his Court, cognizant of the important public policy of encouraging settlement among litigating parties, has recommended all parties consider engaging in settlement discussions to determine if an amicable resolution of these cases is possible,” wrote Judge Goodwin. “The settlements announced by plaintiffs and [AMS] demonstrate that settlement of these cases is possible.”

Reisman served as the national settlement counsel for AMS, and Judge Goodwin indicated that he believes she is the most qualified person to help promote settlement between Bard and women pursuing similar vaginal mesh claims to those she resolved on behalf of AMS.

Judge Goodwin indicates that all parties are aware of Reisman’s affiliation with AMS and agreed that she would be impartial, waiving any potential conflict of interest.

The appointment of the special master comes as several waves of Bard mesh cases continue to be prepared for trials to begin this year. If Bard fails to start settling large numbers of cases, Judge Goodwin is likely to start remanding dozens of cases back to U.S. District Courts throughout the country for individual trial dates.

As of February 17, the latest update (PDF) released by the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) indicates that Judge Goodwin is currently presiding over 10,348 Bard Avaulta mesh lawsuits, 23,523 Ethicon vaginal mesh lawsuits, 19,159 American Medical Systems (AMS) mesh lawsuits, 15,278 Boston Scientific mesh lawsuits, 1,830 Coloplast vaginal mesh lawsuits, 289 Cook Medical vaginal mesh lawsuits and 83 Neomedic vaginal mesh lawsuits.

With only about 2,000 civil jury trials held each year throughout the entire federal court system, Judge Goodwin has pointed out that it would overwhelm the legal system if each case has to go before a jury.