Jury slaps Bard with $2M in damages in Avaulta pelvic mesh bellwether

August 16, 2013 By Brad Perriello Leave a Comment

A federal jury in the re-trial of a bellwether personal injury lawsuit filed against C.R. Bard (NYSE:BCR) over its Avaulta pelvic mesh slapped the medical device company with a $2 million judgment yesterday.

The West Virginia jury found that Bard’s Avaulta transvaginal mesh was defective, ruling that Bard failed to warn about the problems with the mesh, used to treat pelvic organ prolapse and stress urinary incontinence in women.

It’s the 1st federal lawsuit to claim that the mesh harmed patients. A raft of companies, including Boston Scientific (NYSE:BSX), Endo Health Solutions (NSDQ:ENDP), Cook Medical and Johnson & Johnson‘s (NYSE:JNJ) Ethicon subsidiary, are facing some 4,000 federal lawsuits over their respective mesh offerings.

The case against Bard originally went to trial earlier this summer, but was halted in July after Judge Joseph Goodwin of the U.S. District Court for Western Virginia declared a mistrial. Goodwin ruled that a witness broke his ban on mentioning Bard’s 2012 recall of the Avaulta mesh.

The jury in the 11-day retrial of the case, begun July 29, awarded to plaintiff Donna Cisson $250,000 in compensatory damages and $1.75 million in punitive damages, after deliberating for 12 hours over 2 days, according to Bloomberg.

Costs associated with lawsuits filed over Avaulta hit Bard’s earnings for the 2nd consecutive quarter, according to its Q2 earnings report. The company took a $292.4 million charge to cover its expected liabilities for the lawsuits, on top of a $26 million charge booked during the 1st quarter.

Endo Health subsidiary American Medical Systems agreed in June to pay $54 million to settle personal injury lawsuits filed over its pelvic mesh products.

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