The U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts released an amended case management order on March 2 informing all involved in the Stryker Hip Implant litigation about the new deadlines for the selection of potential bellwether trial cases that was initially scheduled for February 14. The court has now set September 4, 2018, for each side to submit a revised proposal as to the number of bellwether cases to be included in the initial bellwether trial pool. The same day, the court will decide the goals of the MDL, as set forth in Paragraph 3(b) of MDL Order No. 5 |LS|#11|RS|. Selection of bellwether trial cases would be no later than October 5, 2018, as per the court order.
A wrongful death lawsuit was filed recently in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland by the family of the plaintiff who died as a result of a post-operative infection following a revision surgery, which was allegedly needed because of design defects with certain components of Stryker LFit V40 and Accolade II Femoral Hip replacement system she was implanted with. This case will now join the nearly 200 Stryker Hip Replacement lawsuits involving L-FIT V40 femoral heads that have been centralized before U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani under MDL No. 2768 – In re: Stryker LFIT V40 Femoral Head Products Liability Litigation. Also, more than 86 additional cases have been centralized in an MDL in New Jersey’s Bergen County Superior Court.
LFIT V40 components were recalled by the company in August 2016 after the implants were found to suffer from higher-than-expected rates of taper lock failure.
A related hip litigation MDL involving at least 200 Smith & Nephew Birmingham hip lawsuits was allowed to proceed after the presiding judge, Judge Catherine C. Blake for the District of Maryland, rejected an attempt by the manufacturer to have the cases dismissed which were filed under the MDL centralized in since May 2017.
