The U.S District judge presiding in the Northern District of Georgia indicated that all federal Ethicon Physiomesh lawsuits will face their first bellwether trial involving the recalled hernia mesh in April 2020.
As part of the bellwether process designed, it will help parties to gauge how jurors will respond to certain evidence and testimony, which is likely to be repeated throughout thousands of claims brought by the individuals.
Ethicon physiomesh is a multi-layered, flexible composite hernia mesh product introduced by J&J’s Ethicon subsidiary in 2010. Currently, there are more than 2,000 product liability lawsuits over Ethicon Physiomesh pending in the federal court system, each raising similar allegations that the drugmaker sold a defective and dangerous product which caused plaintiff with severe abdominal pain, infection, hernia recurrence, adhesions, perforations, erosion and other injuries associated with a hernia mesh failure.
The federal cases are centralized for pretrial proceedings before US District Judge Richard Story in the Northern District of Georgia as part of MDL. (MDL no. 2782), to avoid duplicative discovery, conflicting rulings from different courts and to serve the convenience of parties.
