A hospital in Arkansas is suing Stryker (NYSE:SYK) to recoup the losses it claims it incurred when the company recalled its Rejuvenate and ABG II hip implants in 2012.
Baxter Regional Medical Center in Mountain Home, Ark., sued Stryker April 27 in an Arkansas state court, according to court documents, seeking to force Kalamazoo, Mich.-based Stryker to cover the cost of patient counseling and revision surgeries
The lawsuit seeks recompense for "loss of revenue and profits related to the additional time required for patient counseling and revision surgeries required to remove and replace ABG II devices, losses of revenue and profits related to what Stryker describes as the ‘practice disruption’ of plaintiffs’ other services and procedures for other patients, damages to the reputation of plaintiffs’ medical practice and other related damages," according to the Baxter Bulletin.
Stryker, which recalled the Rejuvenate and ABG II implants in July 2012, late last year inked a more than $1 billion deal to settle thousands of product liability lawsuits brought against it over the metal-on-metal implants, agreeing to pay up to $300,000 per implant. But that settlement doesn’t cover healthcare providers’ costs from the recall, according to the hospital’s lawyer.
Stryker has not filed its answer to the lawsuit.
"I have spoken with their counsel and we have agreed to extend their answer time to allow everybody time to survey the situation," Randy Coleman told the newspaper. "We are still in the research process. Right now, we just don’t know how many patients at BRMC were recipients of this device."
Coleman told the newspaper that he believes the lawsuit is the 1st brought by a hospital seeking to recoup losses from a recall.
