The 1st trial representing a multi-district complaint against Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) subsidiary DePuy Orthopaedics was delayed by court order, now slated to begin in June.
The 1st bellwether trial was pushed back from May to June 3, 2013, bumping the final pretrial meeting to May 14 and jury selection to May 30, according to legal documents.
U.S. District Judge David Katz of the Northern District of Ohio earlier this month ordered the trial rescheduled, but no reason as given in the court filing.
The Ohio-based multidistrict lawsuit represents thousands of complaints against DePuy and its metal-on-metal hip implants. Lawsuits against DePuy began piling up in June 2010 when a a Florida woman accused the company of knowing about the device’s problems but failed to warn physicians. That suit was followed days later by 3 more from California residents who all had to have revision surgery after the implant partially detached from their hip sockets.
Warsaw, Ind.-based DePuy Orthopedics pulled its ASR XL Acetabular and ASR Hip Resurfacing systems off the market in August 2010 after receiving reports that a higher-than-normal number of patients required surgeries to correct or remove defective implants. More than 96,000 patients were been affected by the massive global recall.
