A Georgia federal judge yesterday cut a $4 million verdict in a defective pelvic mesh lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson‘s (NYSE:JNJ) Mentor business unit in half, applying a statutory $2 million damages cap.
Chief U.S. District Judge Clay Land rejected a bid to overturn the verdict, but reduced the damages by $2 million. Judge Land also upheld a compensatory damages verdict of $400,000, lifting the total amount awarded to $2.4 million.
The case relates to a suit, filed by Florida resident Tessa Taylor in 2012, which claimed that she had been implanted with J&J’s ObTape Sling to treat her incontinence in 2004. The implant was defective, Taylor alleged, and resulted in serious pain and recurring infections. A jury sided with the plaintiff in the case, and set out $4 million in damages for Taylor.
In a post-trial motion, J&J’s Mentor claimed it was entitled to a new trial or decision, alleging that the jury ruled against the weight of the evidence and that evidentiary errors and violations interfered with their decision.
The judge disagreed, and outside of the reductive cap, upheld the jury’s verdict.
“The law has long recognized that only the jury can do this factfinding and that mischief can be created when judges are lulled into believing that due to their superior training and experience, they can actually second-guess that uniquely juror task of factfinding. Thus, we learn early in law school that these jury verdicts are entitled to great deference,” Judge Land wrote in his decisoin.
