Intuitive Surgical (NSDQ:ISRG) and some of its shareholders agreed to stay a lawsuit filed against the medical device company over allegedly misleading statements made during the height of the economic downturn in 2008 and 2009.
The lawsuit, filed in the Superior Court of California for Santa Clara County, was stayed July 11 by Judge James Kleinberg, according to court documents and an SEC filing.
A stockholder filed a lawsuit in August 2010, according to the regulatory filing, followed by an "essentially identical" suit filed a month later. In October of that year, Kleinberg combined the cases.
"By agreement with the plaintiffs, formal discovery has been stayed in the case," according to the SEC filing.
Last month another group of ISRG shareholders, led by the Police Retirement Systems of St. Louis, appealed their case to the 9th Circuit after a lower court dismissed the case. That lawsuit also argues that Intuitive and its leadership issued misleading statements about the state of the company and the effects of the economic recession.
Intuitive Surgical’s shares are still under pressure today, despite the company’s strong 2nd-quarter performance announced last week, on a study showing that most prostate surgeries aren’t necessary. The stock has lost 13.6% since the study dropped July 18, including a 4.7% slide, to $474.33, as of about 11:30 this morning.