Zimmer (NYSE:ZMH) won a reprieve in a personal injury lawsuit filed over its Durom cup hip implant, but saw an erstwhile win in Oklahoma go down.
The Superior Court of Pennsylvania overturned a lower court’s $20 million judgment against Zimmer and a public relations firm in a personal injury lawsuit in which Margo and Daniel Polett accused Zimmer of negligence for injuries allegedly suffered during her participation in a Zimmer promotional video. The court remanded the case for a new trial in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, according to a regulatory filing.
The Poletts filed for an en banc re-hearing in the higher court, a move opposed by Zimmer in a March 28 motion, according to the filing.
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Late last year Zimmer tallied the financial impact of the Durom device, saying it expected to pay another $229.7 million to handle legal complaints related to the implant, on top of the $388.2 million it had already shelled out at that point.
It was a different story for the Warsaw, Ind.-based medical device company in Oklahoma, where that state’s Supreme Court ruled that medical device companies can, in fact, be sued for negligence under state laws.
The ruling, in response to a request from the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, prompted the appeals court to send the case back to a lower court for reconsideration. Zimmer inherited the case, which began more than a decade ago, when it acquired Sulzer Orthopedics in 2003.
Despite the increasing number of lawsuits for knee and hip replacement products mounting against the company, Zimmer actually met analysts’ expectations with its 1st quarter earnings, reporting a 4.3% increasing in profits.
In January, Zimmer lost a bid to bar 1 of the 849 pending personal injury lawsuits filed over its recalled NextGen knee implant from becoming a bellwether case for the multidistrict litigation over the device.