Cartiva Implant Lawyers To Meet With MDL Judge for Initial Conference in Aug. 2026

Conference likely to involve the selection of plaintiffs’ attorneys to serve in leadership positions in the Cartiva implant lawsuit litigation.

Attorneys representing plaintiffs and defendants in Cartiva toe implant lawsuits will meet with the federal judge appointed to oversee the litigation for the first time in August, where they will hash out how to proceed and propose plans for how to select and organize lawyers for leadership positions.

Cartiva Inc. faces at least 15 product liability lawsuits over its Cartiva synthetic cartilage implant (SCI), a polyvinyl alcohol-based hydrogel implant approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2016. However, the size and scope of the litigation is expected to rapidly increase in the coming months and years.

Thousands of individuals nationwide have experienced problems after receiving the implant, which was was marketed as an alternative to big toe fusion for patients suffering from hallux limitus or hallux rigidus, two forms of degenerative arthritis that affect the big toe joint.

Soon after the device hit the market it began to be linked to regular implant failures, despite the manufacturers’ claims that the surgeries had a high success rate. Those failures often required revision surgery to remove the implant and, in many cases, left patients needing their big toe permanently fused, the very outcome they had sought to avoid.

Following growing reports of problems with the implant, the manufacturer announced a Cartiva toe recall in October 2024, after revealing that the device was linked to “higher-than-expected” failure rates.

The recall has been followed by a growing number of Cartiva toe implant lawsuits filed in federal courts nationwide, each raising similar allegations that the implant’s defective design caused patients to experience device failures, pain, loss of mobility and other serious complications.

Cartiva Implant Lawsuits MDL

In February, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation consolidated all Cartiva lawsuits into a multidistrict litigation (MDL) before U.S. District Judge Kristine G. Baker in the Eastern District of Arkansas, who will usher the litigation through coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings.

Judge Baker is expected to establish a series of early bellwether trials, which are test cases selected to help gauge how juries may respond to evidence and arguments that are likely to recur throughout the litigation. However, those trials are still likely years away.

In the meantime, the parties will meet on a regular basis to resolve key issues common throughout the Cartiva toe lawsuits. On June 22, the judge sent a notice (PDF) to all attorneys involved in the litigation, announcing that the first initial organizational meeting will be held on August 26 at the Richard Sheppard Arnold United States Courthouse in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Before the initial status conference, Judge Baker has asked the parties to meet and confer to select an attorney to serve as liaison counsel for each side. The lawyers assigned to these positions will be the primary contact person for the court, will maintain complete files and will receive orders and notices on behalf of all parties.

She also invited plaintiffs to submit a proposed leadership structure for the litigation, which would result in the appointment of attorneys to plaintiff leadership positions. Throughout the course of the MDL, these attorneys would represent the needs of all individuals pursuing federal Cartiva toe lawsuits. The deadline for submitting proposals and applications is August 19.

“That proposal should address the need for liaison counsel in addition to lead counsel, the need for plaintiffs’ steering committee, the proposed fee and compensation structure, and the need for liaison counsel as to related state cases, if any. Of course, other counsel may file similar proposals if they choose to do so, and the Court will consider all such proposals to make these determinations.”

– Chief U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker

These attorneys will help the Court organize discovery and prepare a small group of representative cases for early bellwether trials. While the outcomes of those trials would not be binding on other plaintiffs, they may give both sides a better sense of how juries are likely to respond to the evidence and could help drive Cartiva lawsuit settlement negotiations.

If no settlement or other resolution is reached by the end of the coordinated pretrial proceedings, Judge Baker may begin remanding individual cases back to the U.S. District Courts where they were originally filed for separate trial dates.

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