A Pennsylvania state judge this week upheld a $13.5 million judgement in favor of plaintiffs in a pelvic mesh case against Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) subsidiary Ethicon.
The plaintiff in the case claims she suffered severe and irreversible injuries after being implanted with Ethicon’s pelvic mesh implant.
Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Judge Kenneth Powell Jr. issued an opinion this week in response to an appeal from Ethicon stating that the award should be allowed to stand, according to The Legal Intelligencer.
Ethicon asked the court to grant a new trial or reduce the verdict award, supplying reasons why the jury’s verdict should be reversed. But Judge Powell disagreed with Ethicon’s argument, saying “the evidence of defendant-appellant’s wanton and willful disregard for plaintiff adequately supported the jury’s award of punitive damages,” according to the report.
Judge Powell also defended the plaintiff’s compensatory damages, saying that the plaintiff’s pain “is not merely ‘intermittent’ pain – it is chronic pain, pain that will be with her for the rest of her life, with no real prospect of resolution,” according to The Legal Intelligencer.
A jury in Philadelphia last February awarded plaintiff Sharon Carlino $3.5 million in compensatory damages and $10 million in punitive damages, finding that the Ethicon transvaginal polypropylene tape implanted during a 2005 hysterectomy was defective and that the company failed to adequately warn of its risks, The Legal Intelligencer reported. Carlino eventually needed 3 revision surgeries to remove the eroded mesh.
In December 2015, a jury in the same court added $7 million in punitive damages to the $5.5 million in compensatory damages it leveled against Ethicon in the 1st of the mass tort cases to go to trial in Philly.
Carlino’s attorney, Shanin Specter, said the family is thankful for the verdict.
