U.S. District Judge Richard Story, presiding over all federal hernia mesh lawsuits involving Ethicon Physiomesh, has released a trial schedule with the first case starting in March.
Johnson & Johnson’s Ethicon subsidiary introduced the Ethicon Physiomesh in 2010. It was a multi-layered, flexible composite hernia mesh product that was removed from the market after six years of its launch. The discontinuation of the product resulted from numerous complaints that claimed additional surgeries for the individuals who had it implanted.
Currently, more than 3,000 Ethicon Physiomesh lawsuits are filed throughout the federal system. Each lawsuit claims that the manufacturer sold an unreasonably dangerous and defective product that resulted in painful and debilitating complications causing severe abdominal pain, infection, hernia recurrence, adhesions, perforations, erosion, and other injuries leading to revision surgery for removal of the product.
The lawsuits are consolidated under MDL No.: 2782 in the Northern District of Georgia. The jury has identified four cases that will go before trial for the hearings starting from March 18, 2021. The initial trial is estimated to go on for two to three weeks, followed by the second trial set to begin on June 7, 2021. The remaining two trials will go before the jury on September 13, 2021.
As a part of an MDL or multidistrict litigation, all the federal cases are centralized before U.S. District Judge Richard Story in the Northern District of Georgia to reach a common outcome.
