Lawsuit Information Center

August 15, 2013

Boston Scientific Vaginal Mesh Cases

The vaginal mesh cases are heating up everywhere as plaintiffs’ lawyers, who frankly smell blood, are pushing with greater vigor to get and hold trial dates. Multi-million dollar verdicts will do that.

In the Boston Scientific transvaginal mesh cases, lawyers are pushing fast to get a trial date and are expected to get one soon. How do you define “soon” in tort law? Early next year.

All these federal cases have been consolidated in an MDL under a good judge in West Virginia. The class action lawsuit against Boston Scientific contents the mesh that was supposed to protect them from pelvic organ prolapse or stress urinary incontinence has done nothing but make their health problems far worse.

August 14, 2013

NuvaRing Settlements on the Horizon?

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Earlier this month, the first federal NuvaRing lawsuit was delayed because there has been a lot of talk about settling not only that NuvaRing case, but all of the cases at one time. This blog post is about:

What these cases are really about?
An update on just where we are in the litigation?

July 24, 2013

Lawsuit Against Morgan State Will Continue

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

A Baltimore City Circuit Court judge has given the “go ahead” for a student’s lawsuit to proceed – for now, at least – against Morgan State University, denying a Motion to Dismiss the lawsuit.

Awful details here. The 23-year-old Plaintiff has filed suit against Morgan State for failing to act to protect students and visitors on the university campus. The lawsuit, which seeks more than $75,000 on each of three counts consistent with Maryland’s new law not to ask for specific damages in the Complaint, was filed as a result of a horrific beating that the Plaintiff received by the hands of a man later found not criminally responsible due to mental illness.

The lawsuit alleges that there was foreseeability on the school’s part that something bad would happen. That’s where the claim gets a little tricky. The attacker, prone to violent outbursts at college events, attacked the Plaintiff with a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire, blinding him in one eye. The lawsuit states that the warning signs were there, but that Morgan State failed to act. Previously found wielding a machete on campus, and known to leave satanic rants on social media sites, the attacker has since been arrested on a separate case. Charged with murder, it is alleged that he killed and dismembered a family friend, and consumed some of the deceased’s organs.

July 23, 2013

Medtronic Bone Infuse Problems | Learn About Lawsuits

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Medtonic is a large research company that holds itself out as a company that creates new and innovative ways to treat and rehabilitate patients around the world. This is true. But, too often, their innovation flops miserably because they put a product on the market that is not ready, or because they push a product to be used in ways that it should not be used.

The Infuse

In 2002 they introduced an Infuse Bone Graft procedure that uses recombinant human bone proteins to foster the growth and connection of broken bones. It is currently approved for use in anterior lumbar interbody fusion, tibial fractures, and sinus augmentations.

July 18, 2013

Louisville Police Wrongful Death Lawsuit Settles

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Tough Wrongful Death Case Resolves

Three years after the death of a beautiful 22-year-old girl, her family has settled a wrongful death lawsuit with the Louisville Metro Police Department. The case settled for $700,000 – and a letter. A letter to the family of the deceased from the driver responsible for the crash, an off-duty police officer.

In a letter to the family, as part of the settlement, the detective admitted that he was speeding at the time of the accident, which was a “contributing factor to this accident.” An investigation determined that he was driving at approximately 80 mph, around a curve sloping down a hill. The Louisville Metro Police Department, who admits that speeding off duty is an ongoing problem, suspended the detective for 30 days, the department’s strictest discipline, short of being fired. According to the department, he was not fired for a number of reasons, one of which was the fact that the deceased was found to have a blood-alcohol content higher than the state’s 0.08 level for drunk driving – an allegation argued by the family’s attorney as the blood-alcohol sample was lost.

June 25, 2013

Burden of Proof Hurdle Too High in Mississippi

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

A Mississippi Appeals court recently affirmed a trial court decision to throw out a Wal-Mart premise liability case involving a damaged container and corrosive burns. Instead of letting the events (and the injuries) speak for themselves, the court places an extremely high evidentiary expectation that was out of the plaintiff’s grasp. Should courts be allowing corporations to escape liability just because the plaintiff is unable to show every single detail of the accident when he is clearly injured? It is a challenge courts have wrestled with for hundreds of years.

What happened? A patron visited a Mississippi Wal-Mart in the fall of 2010. While perusing the aisles, he selected a bottle of bleach to put in his basket. After leaving the checkout counter, the patron realized he accidentally forgot to purchase the bleach and placed the bottle on his lap to return to the cashier. Unfortunately, this bottle of bleach was leaking and spilled its contents on his legs and thighs. Because of a prior injury, the man had been paralyzed from the waist down since 1967 and he did not become aware of the spilled bleach until the cashier noticed the leaking bottle. The bleach caused chemical burns on his thigh and knee, and he brought suit against the Wal-Mart Corporation.

The patron filed a premise liability claim that alleged Wal-Mart was negligent and had knowledge of a dangerous condition. Wal-Mart made a motion for summary judgment, and the trial court dismissed the case, saying that the patron failed to prove Wal-Mart’s negligent act. The Mississippi Appeals Court affirmed the lower court’s decision.

June 19, 2013

Effectiveness & Safety of Medtronic Infuse

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Promoted as an alternative to traditional spinal surgery, Medtronic Infuse is a bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) that is designed to encourage bone growth and fuse the gaps between vertebrae.

Infuse Bone Graft Side Effects

When Medtronic first initiated studies in 1999 on BMP, researchers discovered that 70 percent of patients developed unnatural bone growth called ectopic bone growth. In 2004, when the study was finally published, the dangers were deemphasized.

April 29, 2013

New Subsequent Remedial Measures Opinion

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Last week, the Court of Appeals of Missouri decided a subsequent remedial measures case that I think is of interest to all personal injury lawyers no matter where you practice.

The subsequent remedial measures rule is one of those law school standards that any second-year student can explain in about two minutes. Despite its seeming simplicity, as we see in Emerson v. Garvin Group, the rule is more complicated to apply.

Settlement amount and jury verdicts in Missouri (update 2023)

April 24, 2013

$7.25 Million Award for Defective Cochlear Implant

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

A Louisville, Kentucky jury awarded an eleven-year-old girl and her family $7.25 million dollars in compensatory and punitive damages as the result of a defective cochlear ear device.

Born deaf, the little girl had a cochlear ear device implanted in her head when she was four years old. Four years later, an electrical short from the device shocked her horrifically; she was thrown to the ground, vomiting and convulsing.

Before the device was removed and replaced 13 months later, she was shocked two more times. The open-head surgery to remove the device from her skull took more than seven hours.

April 10, 2013

Cook Medical Vaginal Mesh Lawsuits

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Vaginal prolapse is incredibly common, with approximately 30-50% of women having some sort of prolapse during their lives. Our lawyers are investigating vaginal mesh lawsuits involving Cook Medical, in addition to other manufacturers of vaginal mesh systems.

Cook Medical Transvaginal Mesh Cases

Cook Medical held its products out as breakthrough technology

Pelvic organ prolapse is a condition in which structures such as the uterus, rectum, bladder, urethra, small bowel, or the vagina itself may begin to fall or “prolapse” out of their normal positions. These structures may eventually prolapse farther and farther into the vagina, or even through the vaginal opening, without medical treatment or surgery. Enter synthetic mesh devices. No doubt a great idea.

According to the FDA, between January 2008 and December 2010, there were nearly 3,000 adverse event reports involving transvaginal mesh devices. Side effects reported with vaginal mesh can include:

Infections
Internal bleeding
Vaginal scar tissue
Vaginal wall narrowing
Painful urination
Fistulas
Mesh shrinkage
Mesh migration
Urinary problems
Punctures to the bladder, blood vessels, bowels, or other organs in the lower abdomen
Mesh erosion into the vagina, bladder, intestines, and uterus
Pain
Painful sexual intercourse for both partners
Recurrence of incontinence
Recurrence of both pelvic organ prolapse or stress urinary incontinence, or both

Cook Medical held its product out as breakthrough technology, resistant to infection, and “unlike synthetic mesh, nothing is left permanently in the body to cause problems down the road.” On the contrary, Cook Medical transvaginal mesh products have had more than their fair share of problems. (In fairness, they have all put out awful products. Cook Medical is no exception.).