Bard PowerPort Lawsuit MDL Tops 2,000 Cases

Each of the claims raise similar allegations, indicating that design defects with the implantable port catheter caused severe and devastating injuries.

Just over two years after a multidistrict litigation (MDL) was established for Bard PowerPort lawsuits brought throughout the federal court system, new court documents indicate that there are now more than 2,100 claims centralized in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona for coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings.

The Bard PowerPort is a totally implantable vascular access device (TIVAD), which has been marketed as an implant 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.

However, in recent years, the port catheter has been linked to an alarming number of reports involing implant failures, leading to allegations that a defective design leaves the device vulnerable to catheter fractures and migration injuries, among other complications.

Given common questions of fact and law raised in the complaints, a Bard PowerPort lawsuit MDL was established in July 2023, centralizing all claims brought throughout the federal court system before U.S. District Judge David G. Campbell to reduce duplicative discovery into common issues and prepare for a series of early test trials.

Over the past few years, there has been a steadily rising number of claims brought, but the manufacturer is now pushing back, indicating that some plaintiffs are not properly indentifying the specific port catheter implanted in their body before filing a complaint.

Bard PowerPort Lawsuit Status Conference

Tomorrow, the parties will meet with Judge Campbell to provide an update on the status of the litigation, and on progress preparing a small group of “bellwether” claims for early trial dates, which are expected to begin next year.

Ahead of the case management conference, lawyers submitted a joint memorandum (PDF) on September 16, providing an update on the number of cases now pending in the Bard PowerPort MDL, as well as various state courts nationwide.

The memorandum notes that there are now 2,169 Bard PowerPort lawsuits filed as part of the MDL. In addition, another 146 claims have been filed in New Jersey, where they are centralized as part of a New Jersey multicounty litigation, which is similar to an MDL, but at the state level. Another 21 PowerPort lawsuits have been filed in Arizona in Maricopa County Superior Court.

As the litigation grows and draws closer to the start of bellwether trials, Bard indicates that it is seeing an increasing number of claims that do not properly identify the implant used in the surgery. While plaintiffs have resolved some of those issues, the defendants “are concerned about the proliferation of this practice.”

Plaintiffs, however, said they were unaware of the issue until the creation of the memorandum, and that they believed the parties had addressed the issue in November 2023, when negotiating the short-form complaint used by parties that directly file with the MDL.

“Plaintiff Leadership learned for the first time in the joint memo exchange that Defendants are concerned about an alleged ‘proliferation’ of cases being filed without product ID. After the joint memo deadline for adding new information, Defendants added new information and removed other information to their section on this issue; Plaintiffs have not had the opportunity to respond.”

– Plaintiffs attorneys position statement in joint memorandum

Lawyers serving in leadership roles on a plaintiffs’ steering committee note in the memorandum that there are only six lawsuits lacking the product ID, mostly filed by the same law firm.

Bard PowerPort Lawsuit Bellwether Trials

Early in the litigation, a Bard PowerPort lawsuit bellwether program was established, to select a representative group of claims to prepare for early trials, which will help the parties and the court see how juries may respond to certain testimony and evidence that will be repeated throughout the growing litigation.

Earlier this year, the Court selected six prospective cases that are eligible for the first bellwether trials, which have been undergoing final preparations.

In August, Judge Campbell announced the order for the Bard PowerPort bellwether trials, with the first involving a lawsuit filed by Robert Cook of Minnesota scheduled to begin on March 2, 2026, followed by five additional trials throughout 2026. At the state level, Arizona’s first Bard PowerPort lawsuit trial is scheduled for August 3, 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 U.S. District Courts nationwide for separate trials in the future.