Jury Awards Nearly $500 Million Verdict in 2016 J&J Pinnacle Trial
(Thursday, March 17, 2016) — Today a Dallas, TX jury awarded an astounding $497.6 million dollar verdict over the defective Pinnacle metal-on-metal hip replacements made and sold by DePuy Orthopaedics and Johnson & Jonnson. This is a huge victory for the 5 patients in this case who all suffer from similar debilitating health problems because of their implants, including inflammation around the hip joint tissue, bone erosion, and metallosis.
The jury held both DePuy and J&J liable over claims of failure to warn and design defects of the MoM hips. According to reports in Law360, the verdict included $360 million in punitive damages and $140 million in compensatory damages. The $140 million will be divided among the 5 patients based on the severity and impact of their injuries.
You can read the entire Pinnacle trial verdict form here. This document includes juror instructions, definitions and explanations of the questions, how the jurors responded to each claim and shows the breakdown of damages the jurors assessed for each of the plaintiffs.
Jury selection began on January 8th and opening arguments took place on January 11th. The jury heard 37 days of testimony before spending 4 days in deliberations to reach their verdict. This is the 2nd bellwether trial in this Multi-District Litigation (MDL). The first MDL trial took place in October 2014 and resulted in a verdict in favor of Johnson and Johnson on all counts.
“This is a resounding victory for all victims of defective metal on metal hip replacements, says Altom M. Maglio, Managing Partner of mctlaw. “This verdict sends a message to orthopedic companies that they will be held accountable if they fail to put their patients ahead of their profits. Mr. Maglio has spent years litigating against all the major hip device manufacturers and filed the first metal-on-metal hip replacement lawsuit in the United States.
There are currently more than 8,000 cases in the MDL involving Pinnacle hip implants. Attorneys for J&J and DePuy say they will appeal this verdict.
Do You Have a Defective Metal on Metal Hip Replacement?
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