Bard PerFix Plug Lawsuit Results in $500K Jury Award, After Hernia Mesh Caused Painful and Debilitating Complications.

A federal jury found C.R. Bard liable for failure to warn, negligence and strict liability claims brought by a Maine man who suffered injuries from the Bard PerFix Plug.

The third bellwether trial over Bard hernia mesh complications has ended in a $500,000 verdict for a Maine man, who indicated that the company’s PerFix Plug failed, leading to severe injuries.

The claim was filed by Aaron Stinson, who was implanted with a Bard Perfix Plug in 2015, but had to have it removed in 2017 after the device failed. The lawsuit indicated Stinson suffered chronic pain and other health problems as a result.

The allegations are similar to those presented in more than 18,000 hernia mesh lawsuits brought throughout the federal court system against C.R. Bard, each involving claims that different polypropylene products sold in recent years were unreasonably dangerous and defective, including the Bard PerFix Plug, the Bard Ventralight, Bard Ventralex, Bard 3DMax, and others.

Given common questions of fact and law raised in the complaints, the Bard hernia mesh litigation has been centralized for the past five years as part of a multidistrict litigation (MDL) before U.S. District Judge Edmund A. Sargus in Ohio, for coordinated discovery and a series of bellwether trials, which are designed to help the parties gauge how juries may respond to certain evidence and testimony that will be repeated throughout the claims.

The first two bellwether trials ended in mixed results, with the first case ending in a defense verdict for Bard in August 2021, and the second bellwether trial resulting in a $255,000 verdict for the plaintiff in April 2022.

Bard PerFix Plug Bellwether Trial Verdict

Stinson’s lawsuit indicated that his surgeon found the mesh curled up in a ball of scarred tissue during an exploratory surgery, which was done to determine why he was experiencing constant leg and groin pain.

The lawsuit indicated that the hernia mesh manufacturers knew about the risk of PerFix Plug mesh failures long before the product was placed in his body, but failed to warn patients and the medical community.

Following a trial which began in mid-October in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, the federal jury returned a $500,000 compensatory damages verdict in Stinson’s favor this week. The jurors found Bard liable for failure to warn, strict liability, and negligence. However, the company was not ordered to pay any punitive damages, which could have greatly increased the verdict to punish Bard for gross negligence.

A fourth Bard mesh trial is expected to begin on April 8, 2024, involving a Bard 3DMax lawsuit brought by Jacob Bryan, which was originally scheduled for trial in January.

November 2023 Bard Hernia Mesh Lawsuit Update

Although the outcome of early bellwether trials held in the federal MDL will not have any binding impact on other claimants, they are designed to promote settlement negotiations by highlighting the amounts of Bard hernia mesh lawsuit payouts that may be awarded if each claim goes to trial.

If the parties fail to negotiate acceptable average Bard hernia mesh settlements to resolve large numbers of claims following the last bellwether trial, it is expected that Judge Sargus will consider remanding large numbers of claims back to U.S. District Courts nationwide for individual trial dates nationwide. However, there has been no signal when those remands may begin or how long it would take for those claims be be ready to go before a jury.

In addition claims against Bard, thousands of similar claims have been filed in recent years against manufacturers of other polypropylene mesh products that have resulted in widespread injuries, including thousands of Ethicon Physiomesh lawsuits and Atrium C-Qur lawsuits which were centralized in separate MDLs, and lawyers involved in each of those proceedings have reached hernia mesh settlements shortly before scheduled bellwether trials were set to begin.