Monday (16 October 2017) sees DePuy facing claims in the High Court in London for compensation pursued by over 340 English and Welsh patients who allege that their Pinnacle hip prostheses failed, poisoning them and requiring early revision.
At the same time in a Texas court DePuy is facing its fourth trial from a number of US citizens alleging the same injury. It successfully defended the first trial one before being ordered to pay $500m in the second and $1 billion in the third trial. There are almost 9,000 lawsuits accusing the company of illegally marketing the flawed metal-on-metal hips.
The UK National Joint Registry 2017 has identified that the Pinnacle metal-on-metal total hip replacement has a failure rate at 10 years that is six times higher than the failure rate of the mostly common used standard conventional components.
They stopped selling the devices in 2013.
Hugh James is one of the firms leading the litigation. Mark Harvey who heads up their Specialist Personal Injury and Harmful Products team is a member of the claimants’ court appointed steering committee said:
“This litigation follows DePuy’s worldwide recall in 2010 of its other metal on metal hip the ASR which has left thousands of British patients needing early revisions of those hips. Our clients believed they were being given new leases of life with increased mobility believing as they did DePuy’s claims that their Pinnacle Ultamet was a device with “exceptionally low wear rates” and excellent survivorship, lasting longer than conventional hip replacements. Instead they have had to endure years of pain and watch their mobility disappear.
We have worked long and hard to get these claims to court and I know our clients expect to see justice being done.”
