Patients in another bellwether trial against C.R. Bard (NYSE:BCR) will have to wait another month to air their grievances in court after a West Virginia judge pushed back their trial date.
The delayed lawsuit, originally slated for trial today, will instead be heard on January 10, 2014, according to a legal filing.
The lawsuit, filed by Carolyn Jones, claims that Bard is liable for injuries allegedly caused by its Avaulta vaginal mesh implants. The Jones suit is 1 of 4 bellwether Avaulta trials filed in the Southern District of West Virginia.
The 1st bellwether case against Bard originally went to trial earlier this summer, but was halted in July after Judge Joseph Goodwin declared a mistrial, ruling that a witness broke his ban on mentioning Bard’s 2012 recall of the Avaulta mesh. The jury in the 11-day retrial of the case, begun July 29, awarded $250,000 in compensatory damages and $1.75 million in punitive damages to plaintiff Donna Cisson.
The jury found that Bard’s Avaulta transvaginal mesh was defective and ruled that Bard failed to warn about the problems with the mesh, which is used to treat pelvic organ prolapse and stress urinary incontinence in women
Bard in August settled the 2nd bellwether case in the Avaulta multidistrict litigation that’s being adjudicated in federal court in West Virginia. The medical device company and Wanda Queen agreed to settle the case for an undisclosed amount the morning before it was set to go before a jury.
The 3rd case, Rizzo et al v. C. R. Bard, was dismissed with prejudice less than a month before it was slated to go before a jury, with the plaintiff voluntarily pulling back the complaint. Bard asked Judge Goodwin to award it attorneys’ fees and costs, but was rebuffed.
The Jones trial is scheduled to go to a pre-trial conference on January 9, with the trial on the docket for the next day.
Bard is not along in facing public ire and legal action over transvaginal mesh products. A raft of medical device companies including Boston Scientific (NYSE:BSX), Endo Health Solutions (NSDQ:ENDP), Cook Medical and Johnson & Johnson‘s (NYSE:JNJ) Ethicon subsidiary, are facing some 4,000 federal lawsuits over their respective mesh offerings.