Judge Richard Young of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana has set a goal to begin trying federal Cook inferior vena cava (IVC) filter lawsuits by September 2016. In a recent case management order, Judge Young requested that the plaintiffs and defendants each choose five exemplary cases for bellwether IVC trial. The lists of cases have been submitted; now both sides in the multidistrict litigation will take depositions and discovery through mid-March of 2016.
IVC filters are small, spider-shaped devices inserted into the vena cava to prevent blood clots from traveling to or forming near vital organs. They are intended to decrease patients’ risk of life-threatening events like stroke; but more and more literature has come out suggesting Cook IVC filters may be defective. In 2010, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a safety communication warning about the dangerous effects of long-term IVC filter use. The agency cited 921 adverse event reports describing incidents of filter fracture, device migration, and vena caval perforation.
Cook IVC filter lawsuits allege that Cook’s Celect and Gunther Tulip filters were defectively designed, and that the company failed to properly warn patients and practitioners of the risks of failure. Recently, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict litigation centralized all pending federal Cook IVC filter lawsuits in an Indiana multidistrict litigation (MDL). In the past year, the number of cases has grown from 27 to over 100, and many more Cook IVC filter lawsuits are expected to join the MDL in the coming months.
In addition to Cook’s filters, Bard IVC filters are at the center of a similar multidistrict litigation. In August, nearly two-dozen Bard IVC filter lawsuits were consolidated in Arizona for coordinated proceedings.
If you or a loved one was injured by a failed Cook IVC filter or Bard IVC filter, contact the IVC lawyers at Lopez McHugh today for a free legal consultation. You may be entitled to damages in your own IVC filter lawsuit.