DePuy Metal Hip Replacement Lawsuit Pursued in U.K. Over ASR Recall

A DePuy ASR class action lawsuit is being pursued in the United Kingdom, alleging that the recalled metal hip implants can flood a patient’s body with toxic metal debris, which could lead to tumors and cancer. 

In August, DePuy Orthopaedics Inc., a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, recalled the ASR metal-on-metal hip replacement system, acknowledging that about one out of every eight patients who receives the hip implant may experience problems within five years. At the time of the recall, about 93,000 DePuy ASR hip implants had been sold.

The recall affects more than 10,000 U.K. residents, who must have their implants reviewed by doctors to see if they are potentially defective. According to a report by The Daily Mail, a complaint will be brought on behalf of at least 78 patients who received a defective DePuy ASR hip implant in the U.K., many of whom have had to undergo revision surgery.

The DePuy metal hip replacement lawsuit will call for £3.5 million ($5.5 million) in compensation, however some estimates say that price tag could grow as high as £350 million ($550 million) as more recipients of the implants in the U.K. join the lawsuit.

According to allegations raised, design problems with the DePuy metal-on-metal hip replacement system allow the release of chromium and cobalt into the blood, which can be toxic.

Blood tests on some patients with the ASR hip implants have revealed that levels of chromium and cobalt can be 100 times higher than normal, and in some cases the patients have had tissue inflammation and benign tumors develop. Both chromium and cobalt have been linked to cancer in certain conditions, although cobalt is also used to fight cancer under certain applications.

In addition to the claim in the U.K., there have been a number of individual and class action DePuy metal hip replacement lawsuits in the United States as well. On September 30, a DePuy class action lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio claiming that the company is misleading people into thinking they will be reimbursed for defective DePuy hip implants in order to try and get them to sign waivers that would give the company both the implant and access to their medical records.

Another DePuy ASR recall class action claim was filed on September 24 by Katheryn Bendel, seeking to force the company to pay for a uniform program to compensate for medical monitoring for all hip replacement patients who received one of the defective metal implants, regardless of their financial or health care situations.

In addition to the class actions, a growing number of DePuy ASR injury lawsuits have been filed by individuals throughout the United States who have experienced problems with a DePuy ASR implant, many of which have required revision surgery to replace the artificial hip.

All of the lawsuits over DePuy ASR hip implants involve similar allegations of design defect, which caused the plaintiffs to incur additional medical expenses, suffer pain and, in some cases, require additional surgery to revise or replace the hip implant. The complaints allege that DePuy failed to adequately test the metal-on-metal hip system and failed to immediately issue a recall when it became apparent that that the DePuy ASR was linked to a high failure rate.

In September, a motion was filed with the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation to consolidate and centralize the DePuy ASR recall litigation. The Panel is scheduled to hear arguments on the motion next month.