Lawsuits Over Zimmer Knee Replacements Continue to Mount

Lawyers involved in federal lawsuits over Zimme knee replacements are scheduled to meet with the MDL court today, as the number of cases filed by individuals throughout the United States continue to mount at a fast rate, nearly a year after a panel of judges consolidated the litigation.

In August 2011, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation issued an order centralizing all product liability lawsuits involving problems with Zimmer NexGen knee replacements before Judge Rebecca R. Pallmeyer in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

All of the complaints involve similar allegations that plaintiffs experienced problems with certain Zimmer knee replacements, which were allegedly caused by design defects or Zimmer’s failure to provide accurate information about the risk of problems.

At the time the Zimmer knee replacement litigation was consolidated before Judge Pallmeyer, the MDL panel transferred 18 cases from different federal district courts throughout the country to the Northern District of Illinois for coordinated management during pretrial proceedings.

Over the past year, more than 440 additional lawsuits filed in other U.S. District Courts have been transferred into the Zimmer NexGen MDL, with nearly 100 of those complaints coming over the past 30 days alone.

Judge Pallmeyer is scheduled to meet with lawyers involved in the litigation today.

According to a proposed agenda (PDF) submitted by both parties earlier this week, the court is expected to receive a status report on discovery, information about the coordination of the federal litigation with state court proceedings, discuss the status of a trial plan and consider motions filed to remand certain cases and to allow Zimmer to contact treating physicians.

The lawsuits over Zimmer knee replacements involve alleged problems with a number of different components, including the Zimmer NexGen LPS-Flex, Zimmer NexGen CR-Flex, Zimmer NexGen GSF LPS-Flex, Zimmer NexGen GSF CR-Flex and Zimmer NexGen MIS Tibia component.

One of the most recent complaints involving one of the Zimmer knees was brought by William T. Casper on July 9, involving nearly identical allegations to those raised in other lawsuits. Casper received a Zimmer NexGen knee replacement on his left knee in April 2005, but alleges that design defects caused the implant to fail and led to the need for revision surgery to have it removed on July 19, 2010.

The lawsuit alleges that Zimmer designed, manufactured and sold defective product and failed to adequately warn about the risk of problems.

The Zimmer NexGen system was first introduced in 1995, with most components later approved without extensive trials or FDA investigation into their safety through the 510K fast-track approval program, which only requires that devices be “substantially equivalent” to medical devices already on the market to obtain marketing approval.