Bloomberg News reports “Johnson & Johnson said a judge threw out a woman’s lawsuit arguing a vaginal-mesh implant was defectively designed, ending the first trial of claims the sling caused patients’ injuries.” Yesterday, “U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin in Charleston, West Virginia…granted a directed verdict for J&J on Carolyn Lewis’s claims that a TVT Retropubic sling implanted to treat incontinence was improperly designed, Matthew Johnson, a spokesman for J&J’s Ethicon unit,” the maker of the sling, “said in an e-mail.”
The Charleston (WV) Gazette reports that Judge Goodwin “is handling about 50,000 cases over the implantation of pelvic mesh as part of federal litigation across the country.” The trial “that began last Monday marked the first time Johnson & Johnson went to trial in federal court over its TVT Retropubic and Gynecare Prolift pelvic meshes. More than 10,000 lawsuits have been filed against the company.” Jurors “would have had to decide if the design of the mesh is defective and whether the company was negligent. Goodwin had previously dismissed the plaintiff’s failure to warn claim.”
The Charleston (WV) Daily Mail reports that Carolyn Lewis, Kenneth Lewis, Augistina Brown-Singletary, Andre Singletary-Smith, Karin Harrison, Robert Harrison, Patricia Headrick, Darrell Headrick, Katie Uszler, Nick Uszler, Kelly Young and Kenneth Young “originally filed the lawsuit in July 2012 in the Northern District of Texas.” Judge Goodwin “ruled plaintiffs did not present enough information to support a defect in the device, according to documents.”
From the American Association for Justice news release.
