As per an order issued on November 20 in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of Ohio, the bellwether trials involving C.R. Bard Inc.'s polypropylene mesh lawsuits will commence in 2020. The plan for three trials has been set with the first trial to begin tentatively on May 8, 2020, and the remaining lawsuits will head to trial on July 13, 2020, and September 14, 2020.
The court will soon create a discovery pool comprising of 12 representative cases linked to hernia mesh complications. A list consisting of 6 cases from both parties (Plaintiff and Defense Counsel) is required to be submitted earliest by January 31, 2019. When the discovery process concludes, the court will form a bellwether pool by picking 6 lawsuits from the initial discovery pool. The parties are required to submit a list of 3 cases on July 13, 2020. The final bellwether cases will be announced by the court on February 14, 2020.
The mesh products named in the lawsuits contain polypropylene material, which can easily break, shrink or wear off. This often leads to device migration, organ perforation, infection, and several other complications. Lawsuits allege the defective design of the hernia mesh often required the patients to undergo additional correction surgeries.
The multidistrict litigation underway in the Southern District of Ohio currently holds at least 209 pending hernia mesh lawsuits filed by plaintiffs who suffered extreme complications and harmful side-effects due to polypropylene hernia mesh devices manufactured by Bard and Davol. The complaints filed include Composix Mesh, Kugel Hernia Patch, CK Parastomal Patch, Modified Kugel Patch, Composix E/X Mesh, and Ventralex Hernia Mesh. The MDL No. 2846, In Re: C.R. Bard/ Davol, Polypropylene Hernia Mesh Products Liability Litigation is overlooked by Judge Edmund A. Sargus for coordinated pretrial proceedings.
