Depuy Hip Lawsuit
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As of summer 2018, Johnson & Johnson reported that, despite already facing more than 9,000 claims over Pinnacle devices in United States federal court alone, the number of lawsuits filed over the DePuy Pinnacle Acetabular Cup System continued to grow. With Johnson & Johnson and DePuy already having been ordered to pay over $1 billion in total damages across just three bellwether verdicts, the companies face a potentially staggering amount of financial liability. Or, as Johnson & Johnson chose to phrase it, “the Company continues to receive information with respect to potential costs” of DePuy Pinnacle lawsuits.

Depuy Hip Lawsuit Consolidation (MDL)
Since May 2011, federal cases in the US have been consolidated as multidistrict litigation (MDL) being conducted in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas. In the Transfer Order establishing the MDL, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) concluded that the various “actions share factual questions as to whether DePuy’s Pinnacle Acetabular Cup System, a device used in hip replacement surgery, was defectively designed and/or manufactured, and whether defendants failed to provide adequate warnings concerning the device.” The plaintiffs’ motion for consolidation included three separate actions, two from the Central District of California and one from the Western District of Washington, while the JPML also acknowledged being “notified of 54 additional related actions” and “potential tag-along actions”.

Since that time, the federal MDL has expanded exponentially. According to Law360, as of late August 2018, the DePuy Pinnacle MDL contained over 9,000 cases.

Depuy Hip Lawsuit Bellwether Trials
Johnson & Johnson and DePuy thus far have not fared well in bellwether trials conducted under the DePuy Pinnacle MDL, having been found liable in three out of four such cases. In the first bellwether, which involved a plaintiff from Montana suing over the Pinnacle Ultamet device, a jury found Johnson & Johnson and DePuy not liable. Subsequently, however, the companies would suffer 3 consecutive losses resulting in jury verdicts of $502 million dollars (verdict has since been overturned) , $1 billion , and $245 million (later reduced to $153 million, $543 million, and $245 million, respectively). Recently, Johnson and Johnson said they'd be willing to pay out a $400 million dollar settlement for Depuy Pinnacle Hip Cases.

Johnson and Johnson Litigation
Despite the run of three-straight nine-figure verdicts, the most recent of which came down in November 2017, Johnson & Johnson has continued to express confidence to both regulators and investors over the strength of its legal position in DePuy Pinnacle Cup lawsuits. In its SEC filing for the second quarter of 2018, Johnson & Johnson declared, “The Company has established an accrual for defense costs only in connection with product liability litigation associated with the PINNACLE® Acetabular Cup System.” (Emphasis added.) This means that, while Johnson & Johnson has allocated money to pay for its legal defense in DePuy Pinnacle Cup cases, the company’s official position is that it does not anticipate having to pay out any money in the form of damages or settlements in Pinnacle-related lawsuits, a position that flies in the face of the bellwether verdicts.