Plaintiffs in 7 lawsuits filed over Johnson & Johnson‘s (NYSE:JNJ) recalled DePuy ASR hip implant can also file claims over the DePuy Pinnacle acetabular cup device, a state judge in California ruled last week.
Judge Richard Kramer of the California Superior Court in San Francisco allowed a joint motion filed by the plaintiffs seeking to add their DePuy Pinnacle claims to the DePuy ASR lawsuits, according to court documents.
Johnson & Johnson is facing more than 10,000 lawsuits around the country over the DePuy ASR device, which it pulled from the market in 2010 on reports of an abnormally high number of revision surgeries. In March, a California jury awarded $8.3 million in damages to 1 plaintiff after finding that the DePuy ASR XL metal-on-metal implant was defectively designed.
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The New Brunswick, N.J.-based healthcare conglomerate later revealed that the recall cost it $271 million during the 1st quarter last year. An internal company audit found that 1 in 3 metal hips could fail in less than 5 years, according to testimony unveiled in January in 1 of the cases. U.S. regulators in the U.S. have launched a probe into possible marketing violations for the ASR hip.
More than 900 DePuy Pinnacle cases have been rolled into a multi-district litigation in Texas, with a judge there ruling in May that Warsaw, Ind.-based DePuy Orthopaedics must produce compliance reports on the Pinnacle device.
