DePuy Hip Replacement Class Action Suit Filed in Canada

Three more class action lawsuits have been filed in Canada against Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiary, DePuy Orthopaedics, over recalled DePuy ASR metal hip implants. 

The DePuy hip replacement class action lawsuits were filed this month across Canada, and seek to represent the 1,500 Canadians who received DePuy ASR XL Acetabular System and ASR Hip Resurfacing System implants from 2006 until they were removed from the market in August.

A DePuy ASR hip replacement recall was issued by Johnson & Johnson and DePuy Orthopaedics after the companies acknowledged that an unacceptably high number of the devices were failing within a few years after implant. Approximately 93,000 of the metal-on-metal hip implants were sold prior to the recall, exposing people to a high risk of problems with their DePuy ASR hip replacements.

These latest lawsuits follow at least two other DePuy ASR class action suits filed in Canada in November, one of which also included claims for individuals implanted with certain Zimmer hip replacements and Stryker hip replacements.

In the United States, a growing number of people who received the ASR implant have filed an individual DePuy hip replacement lawsuit. All of the claims involve similar allegations of design defect, indicating that DePuy and Johnson & Johnson failed to adequately test the metal-on-metal hip replacement and failed to immediately issue a recall when it became clear that the DePuy ASR was linked to a high failure rate.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation ordered that the federal DePuy hip replacement litigation be consolidated in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio as part of an MDL, or multidistrict litigation. While the cases will be managed during pretrial proceedings in a manner similar to how a Depuy recall class action lawsuit would be handled, the claims in the United States remain individual cases.