Articles Posted in Wrongful Death

Medtronic said it is resolving claims that wires connecting implantable Sprint Fidelis defibrillators to patients’ hearts were defective. In 2009, the company estimated that at least 13 people may have died because of the problem.

Medtronic said it has agreed to pay $268 million to settle U.S. lawsuits and claims related to its Sprint Fidelis family of defibrillation leads which it recalled three years ago.

The settlement “will provide an average payout of more than $33,000 to patients who have defibrillators with wires that have broken or are considered likely to break.” Company officials estimate “that 170,000 people worldwide still have defibrillators with the Sprint Fidelis leads inside them.” Read full story Bloomberg News.

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The first Yasmin and Yaz Product Liability Federal lawsuit trials are underway according to the recent MDL Southern District of Illinois Court Order. Our Fort Worth Yaz Injury Lawyer law firm is currently handling many cases in the Federal Yaz MDL which is consolidated in Southern District of Illinois, based in East St Louis.

These Federal MDL product liability cases involve allegations that women who took the oral contraceptive birth control pills suffered serious medical problems. 10% of the injury cases are strokes, 40% are venous thromboembolism (VTE), which include deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE) and the remainder are gallbladder injuries.

Bell Weather Trial Case Selection and Process
In Complex Class action or MDL litigation, bell-weather trials allow the parties to evaluate how jurors respond to evidence that will be presented in the upcoming individual litigation.

The Court’s order calls for the parties to each choose 25 cases. All of the injury cases will be either gallbladder injuries or VTE. Yaz and Yasmin stroke lawsuits will not be part of the bell-weather trials because of their low percentage of personal injuries.

After case-specific discovery on the 50 chosen cases, the list of cases will be reduced to 24. The parties will select four PE cases, four gallbladder cases and four other VTE lawsuits. Each party will be allowed to veto one of the other side’s cases from each injury group. The Court will then choose one case from each group to serve as the bell-weather trial. The two other cases are backups in the event the first case cannot be tried for some reason.

The Yaz bell-weather trials will begin with a pulmonary embolism lawsuit on September 12, 2011, followed by a gallbladder injury lawsuit that has been set for trial January 9, 2012 and another VTE case that has been set for trial to begin April 2, 2012.

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As a Fort Worth Defective Drug Product Liability Attorney I am providing this update regarding the status of class actions lawsuits involving Prempro.

According to Bloomberg News, “Pfizer Inc.’s Wyeth unit properly warned a Virginia woman’s doctors about the risks of its Prempro menopause drug, the jury ruled in rejecting her claim for damages.”

Jurors found that “Georgia Torkie-Tork couldn’t show that Wyeth officials downplayed the breast-cancer risks associated with Prempro, a hormone-replacement drug.

As a Fort Worth Product Liability attorney I read with interest this new FDA Meridia warning and recall.

The F.D.A. has announced a recall of the diet drug Meridia due to its link to increased risk of heart attacks and strokes.

Abbott Laboratories has agreed to voluntarily withdraw its obesity drug Meridia (sibutramine) from the U.S. market because of clinical trial data indicating an increased risk of heart attack and stroke, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

A recent study showed that people who take Meridia experience a 16 percent increase in the risk of serious heart problems, including non-fatal heart attacks, non-fatal strokes. Read Article: The Washington Post

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As a Fort Worth DePuy ASR class action attorney and law firm, we have been following closely the events surrounding the DePuy artificial hip replacement and the lawsuits that have followed.

The negligent actions by DePuy Orthopaedics have led to multiple DePuy ASR Class Action Lawsuits involving patients from the world. The main negligence allegations are that the company knew about the high failure rate of its hip devices for years before taking action to fix the device or remove it.

On August 19, 2010 the FDA sent a warning letter to the manufacturers of the DePuy ASR Hip Replacement, DePuy Orthopaedics, regarding other orthopedic devices.

Read here the DePuy Recall Guide for patients.

If you or a family member has been personally injured because of the fault of someone else: by the use of dangerous and defective drugs, bad products, or toxic injury etc then please contact the Fort Worth Texas DePuy ASR Hip Replacement Product Liability Attorney Dr. Shezad Malik. For a no obligation, free case analysis, please call 214-390-3189 or Contact Me Online.

The Dr. Shezad Malik Law Firm is currently evaluating and accepting DePuy ASR Hip Replacement cases.

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