The common claim in the majority of the DePuy lawsuits stemming from the recent DePuy hip replacement recall is that the company was negligent in both the designing and testing of its products. This contributed to the injuries among the recipients of these defective devices. Recipients are also claiming that DePuy knew its hip replacements were defective, but failed to warn the public in an appropriate amount of time. If the company had acted promptly, it could have prevented injuries in thousands of people. It is this claim that has a very strong chance of winning in a court of law.
In 2003, the ASR XL Acetabular System and the ASR Hip Resurfacing System first entered the market. DePuy and its parent company, Johnson & Johnson, was first aware of the growing number of complaints regarding these devices beginning in 2005 from both recipients and surgeons describing pain, swelling, eroded and broken bones, failed implants, and metallosis. The company did not take any action.
The defective implants were detected immediately by Australia and the United Kingdom due to their regulatory artificial joint registries. The National Joint Replacement Registry in Australia reported higher than normal failure rates of the DePuy hip replacements as early as 2007. DePuy then voluntarily withdrew its products from their market by 2009. Similarly, the National Joint Registry of England and Wales was also effective in the early discovery of defective hip replacements. At the same time, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration received several hundred complaints about the metal-on-metal device, but without a national registry to regulate these defective implants, no action was taken. With increasing pressure from the public and the FDA, DePuy finally initiated a recall in August of 2010.
The most recent studies have claimed that the failure rates in these defective devices are worse than originally indicated. Two major orthopedic organizations in the United Kingdom are now stating that out of the 93,000 patients that have received DePuy hip replacements, half of these implants will fail after only 6 years.
DePuy was aware of its defective implants, but continued to market and distribute them regardless. Patients that have received defective hip replacements and want proper compensation for their injuries should contact an experienced attorney. For more information regarding ongoing litigation, visit the DePuy hip recall website for details.
