Breg Shoulder Pain Pump Lawsuit Dismissed in Florida

A federal judge in Florida has dismissed a shoulder pain pump lawsuit pending against the medical device manufacturer Breg, Inc., which was set to be the first case to be submitted to a jury involving allegations that disposable pumps made by several different companies cause permanent and debilitating cartilage damage when used after arthroscopic shoulder surgery.

The Breg shoulder pain pump lawsuit, which was filed by Douglas Kilpatrick, was scheduled for trial to begin the first half of this month in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. However, a key expert witness was excluded after the Court found that his testimony does not scientifically support a link between the Breg pain pump and the plaintiff’s development of shoulder chondrolysis, which involves a progressive loss of cartilage.

Breg manufactures a pump that was used to deliver pain medication via a joint space catheter over a 48-hour period after Kilpatrick’s arthroscopic shoulder surgery. The complaint alleged that the device damaged the cartilage in Kilpatrick’s shoulder, resulting in a shoulder replacement surgery and chronic pain.

Dozens of similar shoulder pain pump lawsuits have been filed in different courts throughout the United States against Breg and other manufacturers of these devices, including Stryker Corp., I-Flow Corp., DJO Inc., DePuy, Inc. and Smith & Nephew, Inc.

Studies have linked the intra-articular use of the shoulder pain pumps to the development of shoulder chondrolysis, a regenerative disease that causes loss of cartilage in the joint. Symptoms of the condition include a decreased range of motion, pain, as well as popping and grinding of the joint, which tend to develop during the months after use of the pain pump as use of the shoulder increases following the arthroscopic surgery.

Kilpatrick, who owns a charter fishing company in Florida, alleged that Breg knew or should have known that their product and the anesthetics it administered directly into the joint space could cause chondrolysis, and failed to warn consumers and the medical community.

U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore, of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida issued an order granting Breg’s Motion for Summary Judgment on June 25, after finding that Kilpatrick could not prove that the product defect proximately caused his injury.

All lawsuits over shoulder pain pumps are currently proceeding as individual claims, after the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation denied a request to consolidate and centralize all federal cases to avoid inconsistent rulings. Therefore, the decision in Kilpatrick’s Breg pain pump lawsuit will not have a binding effect on other lawsuits against manufacturers of the devices pending throughout the United States.