Articles Posted in Multidistrict Litigation

It’s nice to see that I may be out in front of a national publication like The New York Times. For two and a half years I have been writing on the dangers of metal-on-metal artificial hips and the deeply-flawed 510(k) medical device approval process. On Saturday Jeanne Lenzer published a very informative piece in the…

In litigation, there are several harsh and punishing deadlines. The worst one is the statute of limitations (“SOL”). The SOL is a statute in state or federal law that limits the time you are allowed to file a lawsuit. In North Carolina, for example, the SOL for bringing a personal injury claim against a person…

Invokana is a drug prescribed to treat people with Type 2 diabetes. The medication lowers blood sugar levels by preventing the kidneys from reabsorbing blood glucose. I’ve written often about Invokana and the studies that have identified problems with the drug, which you can read about here. I thought it may be useful to give…

Have you been directly affected by the opioid epidemic in America? Millions of people have become addicted to these powerful drugs—and for many, that addiction started with a legally prescribed medication to treat legitimate pain. One report estimated that more than 59,000 people died from drug overdoses in 2016—and most of those were caused by…

In the last three DePuy Pinnacle artificial hip bellwether trials, three juries awarded the following amounts of money: $502,000,000.00, $1,041,311,648.17, and $247,000,000.00. That’s a total of $1.79 billion dollars. The juries awarded plaintiffs compensatory damages (or actual damages) and punitive damages (to “punish” the defendant companies). Remember that these juries settled on these huge amounts…

On November 16, 2017, yet another Texas jury delivered a huge verdict to the victims of the DePuy Pinnacle artificial hip. In this fourth bellwether trial, the jury awarded $247,000,000.00 to six plaintiffs and their spouses. According to news reports, after a two-month, hard-fought trial, the jury found that DePuy Orthopaedics and parent company Johnson…

A former client wrote a review of my work helping him through his metal-on-metal artificial hip case. I am very grateful for the review and would like to share it: I had one shot to even the score. I trusted Clay Hodges with my life. Mr. Hodges and his paralegal were spot-on with every aspect…

By all accounts, each of the three bellwether trials in the DePuy Pinnacle artificial hip MDL has been contentious. In the fourth bellwether trial, which should wrap up this week, the litigants have been in a fierce battle again. The most recent skirmish has centered on allegations by plaintiffs suggesting that lawyers for DePuy Orthopaedics…

Diabetes is a serious condition that affects the way the body metabolizes sugar. Over 29 million Americans currently suffer from the disease. Of the newly diagnosed cases of diabetes in adults, around 95% are for Type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes occurs when the body produces enough insulin but cannot use insulin properly. Type 2…

Last Thursday a jury in Chicago found that AbbVie, Inc., the manufacturers of the testosterone product Androgel, must pay the plaintiff, Jeffrey Konrad, over $140,000,000.00 for injuries he suffered after using the company’s testosterone product. The jury found that AbbVie did not adequately test the testosterone roll-on gel product and misrepresented its safety to patients…