As per an order submitted on October 9, 2018, in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of Georgia, the pretrial schedule for the first Ethicon hernia mesh bellwether trial was revived. The parties involved in the Ethicon Physiomesh Flexible Composite Mesh implants litigation are required to complete case selection (10 in total) by February 14, 2019, ahead of the first trial which has been scheduled for December 2, 2019.
Expert depositions in all trial pool cases are supposed to start on June 14, 2019, and the expert discovery would be finished by August 15, 2019. A memorandum in support of the proposed manner of trial, the order of selection of plaintiffs for the trial and time slot for the trials must be submitted by each of the parties by July 15, 2019. Later on July 29, 2019, the Court would rule on those issues. The date for the pretrial conference has not been finalized yet.
More than 1,450 Physiomesh lawsuits are pending in the Northern District of Georgia, where consolidated lawsuits are undergoing coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings, as part of a multidistrict litigation (MDL No. 2782; In Re: Ethicon Physiomesh Flexible composite Hernia Mesh Products Liability Litigation) overlooked by U.S. District Judge Richard Story. Though several other nations recalled Physiomesh use in surgeries, Ethicon is yet to announce its withdrawal.
