Bard PowerPort Lawsuit Bellwether Trials Set To Begin March 2, 2026

Jury trials will continue throughout next year, to help parties negotiate a potential Bard PowerPort lawsuit settlement that may resolve similar claims.

The U.S. District Judge presiding over hundreds of Bard PowerPort lawsuits brought throughout the federal court system has set trial dates for several “bellwether” trials to begin early next year, putting claims that the port catheter implants were defectively designed before actual juries for the first time.

The Bard PowerPort is a totally implantable vascular access device (TIVAD), which has been sold in recent years as a medical device that provides doctors a safe, reliable port where they can deliver drugs and other medications directly into a patient’s bloodstream, usually in anticipation of repeated injections, such as with chemotherapy. It includes an injection port site where the needle is inserted, which is connected to a polyurethane catheter tube that delivers the fluids to the patient’s body.

Becton Dickinson and its C.R. Bard subsidiary currently face more than 1,800 product liability lawsuits brought over the past few years by recipients of the port catheter implants, each raising similar allegations that the products are defective and unreasonably dangerous, since they are prone to causing port catheter infections, implant fractures, migration injuries and other complications.

Given common questions of fact and law raised throughout the litigation, all federal Bard PowerPort lawsuits have been consolidated as part of a multidistrict litigation (MDL) in the District of Arizona, where U.S. District Judge David G. Campbell has been presiding over coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings.

Early in the litigation, Judge Campbell established a “bellwether” process, where the parties focused on preparing a small group of lawsuits for early trials. These claims have been deemed to be representative of the litigation as a whole, and by putting these claims before juries, both the Court and the parties will see how juries respond to expert witness testimony and evidence that would likely be repeated in nearly every case if they all had to go to trial.

Starting with a group of 24 Bard PowerPort lawsuits in December 2023, the parties subsequently narrowed that list down to six prospective bellwether trial claims in May 2025, which have been undergoing final preparations to go before juries.

Bard PowerPort Lawsuit Bellwether Trial Order

In July, Judge Campbell announced that the first Bard PowerPort lawsuit to go to trial would be a claim by Robert Cook of Minnesota, whose port catheter became infected within about a week of being implanted, resulting in the need for revision surgery to have it removed while he was supposed to be receiving chemotherapy treatments.

After a conference between the Court and the parties on August 18, Judge Campbell issued a case management order (PDF) announcing the full schedule of the first bellwether trial group, starting with Cook’s, which is slated to begin on March 2, 2026.

Following that Bard PowerPort bellwether trial involving Cook’s claims, the cases will go before juries as follows:

• Wanda Miller: April 27, 2026
• May Lattanzio: July 7, 2026
• Kimberly Divelbliss: August 17, 2026
• Judy Hicks: October 13, 2026
• Lloyd Sorenson: December 1, 2026

While the outcomes of these early bellwether trials will not have any binding impact on other claims pending in the MDL or state courts, they will be closely watched by lawyers involved in the litigation. The average jury awards are expected to have a major impact on future Bard PowerPort lawsuit settlement negotiations.

However, if the bellwether trials do not result in a global agreement to settle Bard PowerPort lawsuits, Judge Campbell may begin remanding hundreds of individual claims to various different U.S. District Courts nationwide for separate trials in the future.

Judge Campbell’s order indicates the next status conference will be held on September 18, 2025. Plaintiffs and defendants have been directed to file a joint memorandum ahead of the hearing by September 16.