The first Bard IVC Filter bellwether belonging to MDL: 2641 in re: Bard IVC Filters Products Liability Litigation is scheduled to convene on March 14 this year before U.S. federal Judge David G. Campbell, in the United States District Court District of Arizona.
The pre-trial discovery stage is in progress and the court recently disqualified one out of four plaintiffs’ medical experts who was a consultant to Bard and previously worked for Bard as an expert. Following this, the parties will be provided with a list of prospective jurors by the Court on February 23 next month, and a final pretrial conference is set for March 2, 2018, for counsel to challenge the Court’s excusal of any of the listed jurors. The final selection of nine jurors is scheduled for the morning of March 14, 2018.
The first bellwether will be tried in two phases. The first phase will determine liability and compensatory damages to be followed by a second phase where a decision will be taken whether punitive damages should be awarded.
About 3,000 IVC filter lawsuits are pending in the consolidated action wherein plaintiffs claim that due to manufacturing and design defects, Bard filters are more dangerous than other IVC filters and that Bard failed to forewarn about the higher health risks.
