October 23, 2014 by Brad Perriello
A federal jury in Texas reportedly clears Johnson & Johnson’s DePuy Pinnacle hip implant in the 1st bellwether product liability trial over the metal-on-metal device.
UPDATED Oct. 23, 2014, with comment from DePuy.
A federal jury in Dallas today reportedly cleared Johnson & Johnson‘s (NYSE:JNJ) DePuy Orthopaedics unit in the 1st product liability lawsuit over its Pinnacle hip implant to go to trial.
The jury unanimously found in favor of DePuy on all counts, according to news reports, rejecting plaintiff Kathleen Herlihy-Paoli’s claims for negligence, defective design, failure to warn and violations of the Montana Consumer Protection Act after an 8-week trial in Texas.
Lawyers for Herlihy-Paoli accused the company of concealing the safety risks of the metal-on-metal Pinnacle hip implants she received in 2009. They said the company failed to warn doctors and patients that the device could shed metal ions into the bloodstream, infecting surrounding tissue and causing the level of metals such as cobalt in the blood to soar.
