Biomet Hip Lawsuit Consolidation Sought in Federal Court

A motion has been filed with the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation to consolidate and centralize all federal Biomet Magnum hip replacement lawsuits, which allege that design defects with the metal-on-metal artificial hip caused plaintiffs to experience complications and early failure of their implant.

At least nine product liability lawsuits have been filed against Biomet in U.S. District Courts throughout the country over their M2A Magnum hip replacement, which features a metal ball rotating within a metal cup.

All of the complaints involve similar allegations that the metal-on-metal design of the Biomet hip replacement make it prone to problems and a higher-than-expected failure rate due to metal particles that are shed from the implant as the metal parts rub against each other.

A motion was filed late last month by plaintiffs Leyda Ching and Dianne Winningham requesting that all of the Biomet hip lawsuits be centralized and consolidated before one judge for pretrial proceedings, as part of a multidistrict litigation or MDL.

The process, which is common in complex product liability lawsuits, where a large number of cases have been filed over problems with similar devices, is designed to reduce duplicative discovery, avoid conflicting pretrial rulings from different judges and serve the convenience of the witnesses, the parties and the courts.

Plaintiffs allege that Biomet knew about the risk of problems with the M2A Magnum metal-on-metal hip replacement for several years and has actively concealed that knowledge from physicians that purchase the devices for use in hip replacement patients.

According to the motion, the FDA has received at least 450 complaints of complications with the Biomet M2A Magnum hip, including 159 received during the first five months of 2012, suggesting that there will be a significant number of lawsuits over the Biomet Magnum filed by hip replacement lawyers in the coming months, which would benefit from the creation of an MDL.

Mounting Metal-on-Metal Hip Litigation

In addition to the Biomet M2A Magnum hip replacement, litigation is pending over other metal-on-metal hip systems and at least three other MDLs have already been established for claims involving specific manufacturers and components.

The largest litigation involves lawsuits over DePuy ASR hip replacements, which were recalled in August 2010 after the manufacturer acknowledged that 12% to 13% of the metal-on-metal hip implants may fail within five years. A DePuy ASR MDL was formed in December 2010, with the cases centralized before Judge David A Katz in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio.

In May 2011, a second hip replacement MDL was established for lawsuits involving DePuy Pinnacle hip replacements, which is an older metal-on-metal system on which the DePuy ASR was based. Those lawsuits were centralized before Judge Ed Kinkeade in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

Earlier this year, in February 2012, a third MDL was established for all Wright Medical Conserve hip replacement lawsuits filed over the similarly designed system. Those cases have been transferred to U.S. District Judge William S. Duffey, Jr. in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

In their request to establish a Biomet hip MDL, Ching and Winingham have requested that all cases filed by lawyers in federal district courts throughout the country be transferred to the Northern District of California or the Southern District of New York. Responses from Biomet or other interested parties are due on or before July 19, and it is expected that oral arguments on the motion will be scheduled for an upcoming hearing session scheduled in late September 2012 in New York City, New York.