North Carolina Product Liability Lawyer Blog

Unless you do not own a television, you have likely seen the endless parade of commercials for drugs in this country. Apparently there is a medication that can fix any problem you have–hair loss, high cholesterol, even of course the dreaded erectile dysfunction. Drugs make corporations billions of dollars each year. If they didn’t you…

Part 3 There are two key areas of compensation under the Depuy ASR Hip Settlement Agreement: The Part A Base Award, which we talked about in the last post, and the Part B Award, which awards additional compensation under Depuy’s “Extraordinary Injury Fund” (“EIF”). Let’s get to those “extraordinary injuries.” Bilateral Implants If both of…

Part 2 In Part 1 we talked about the process for determining if you would be eligible to participate in the Depuy ASR Hip Settlement. I remind you that although the deadlines for participation in the first two Depuy ASR settlements have passed, people are still filing lawsuits against Depuy Orthopaedics and Johnson & Johnson.…

I need to pause for a moment in discussing artificial hip litigation and draw your attention to a shocking series of articles on the Johnson & Johnson drug, Risperdal.  Steven Brill has written a compelling series titled America’s Most Admired Lawbreaker.  Brill makes the argument that Johnson & Johnson pushed the prescription drug Risperdal onto…

Part 1 After years of litigation and negotiation among the plaintiffs and defendants, the first Depuy ASR hip settlement agreement was reached on November 19, 2013. This settlement document, with all the exhibits, was 181 pages long. The first settlement agreement required that you must have undergone revision surgery on or before August 31, 2013.…

I appreciate this subject because in many ways it is mystifying. After all, how in the world can an injured person or an attorney or a jury decide the monetary value of the pain and suffering from a broken leg or a failed artificial hip? If you break your collarbone in a car crash, a…

I received a court filing from the Depuy ASR multidistrict litigation last week, and it reminded me to caution you about the serious financial threat you can face when dealing with artificial hip failures and hip litigation (and of course, other medical device failures like artificial knees and transvaginal mesh). Sadly, this threat comes from…

In Part 1, we began to look at some of the factors you should consider before you decide to accept a settlement from Depuy or not. Now let’s dig a little deeper . . . Two Recent Depuy ASR Jury Verdicts As the Depuy ASR Hip Settlement was being negotiated, two cases involving the alleged…

In this post, we will look at the decisions a person must make when faced with a master settlement offer like the recent one in the Depuy ASR hip litigation. Of course, the deadlines have passed in the two settlement agreements involving the Depuy ASR hip systems, but the analysis below remains important, and of…

All right, today we drill down a bit on a rather tedious subject: civil procedure. I need to explain how your artificial hip case may start in your local state court or nearby federal court but then wind up in a federal court hundreds of miles away. It may seem random and chaotic, but with…