Plaintiffs in a raft of product liability lawsuits brought against C.R. Bard (NYSE:BCR) are asking the federal judge overseeing a multi-district litigation to try them all together.
Judge Joseph Goodwin of the U.S. District Court for Southern West Virginia is supervising the MDL involving thousands of the lawsuits filed over Bard’s Avaulta pelvic mesh. Goodwin earlier ordered each side in the litigation to select 100 cases for simultaneous "waves" of preparation.
That list has been culled to 185 cases, with those plaintiffs arguing yesterday that they ought to be lumped together for trial, as was done with an MDL involving Boston Scientific (NYSE:BSX).
Last week Boston Scientific lost the 2nd such trial, which included 4 plaintiffs who sued over its Obtryx device for treating stress urinary incontinence; the Marlborough, Mass.-based company also went down in the 1st trial over its Pinnacle pelvic organ prolapse device, which likewise involved 4 co-plaintiffs.
“By coupling this Court’s innovative trial ‘wave’ work-up process with consolidated trials in multiple jurisdictions, the plaintiffs respectfully submit that the goal of resolution of cases can be accomplished with maximum efficiency and economy," they contended. "Rule 42 consolidated trials were recently successfully employed to move several similar cases forward in the Boston Scientific MDL. Trying individual cases 1-by-1 that are triable in the same district court which involve the same allegations of defect against the same product or substantially equivalent products is a waste of the limited resources of the parties and the judiciary, and imposes a nearly impossible burden on the plaintiffs, their counsel, and their experts."