Stryker Hip Lawsuit Survives Dismissal Bid

Published on November 2, 2016 by Sandy Liebhard

A Stryker hip replacement lawsuit involving the Trident system continues to move forward today, after a federal judge in Rhode Island rejected the manufacturer’s bid to have the claim dismissed. According to a report from Law360.com, Chief U.S. District Judge William E. Smith ruled on Monday that the Plaintiff’s breach of warranty, negligent design and failure to warn claims had been adequately pled.

Per her complaint, Janice Gulluscio received Stryker’s Trident hip replacement in 2003. Ten years later, she suffered a broken wrist, a broken tooth, a spinal fracture and bruises due to its alleged failure. She was also forced to undergo a risky revision surgery to remove and replace the hip implant.

Stryker Hip Litigation and Recalls

The Trident hip system is just one of the Stryker devices that have been embroiled in litigation in recent years. In 2012, a Stryker hip recall was announced for Rejuvenate and ABG II hip stem that were vulnerable to fretting and corrosion at the modular-neck junction. Stryker Orthopaedics warned that recipients of those devices were at risk for adverse local tissue reactions, pain and swelling. In November 2014, the company agreed to pay at least t $1.43 billion to settle thousands of Stryker hip lawsuits involving the Rejuvenate and ABG II components.

On August 29, 2016, Stryker issued an “Urgent Medical Device Product Field Action Notification”  for certain lots of its LFIT Anatomic CoCr V40 Femoral Heads manufactured prior to 2011, after the company received a higher-than-expected number of complaints regarding taper lock failure involving those devices. This issue has the potential to cause serious complications, including failure of the artificial hip and need for revision surgery. The announcement prompted Australian regulatory authorities to issue a Hazard Alert for the LFIT Femoral Heads, while Health Canada announced a Stryker hip recall for the components. So far, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has not issued a public notice regarding the affected LFIT femoral heads.

Stryker’s LFIT Anatomic CoCr V40 Femoral Heads are manufactured from a chromium/cobalt alloy, and are designed to be used with a number of the company’s modular hip devices, including:

• Accolade TMZF
• Accolade 2 Stems
• Meridian Stems
• Citation Stems

Prior to the announcement, a number of Stryker hip lawsuits that involved LFIT Femoral Heads were pending in U.S. courts, including a case that was filed on July 20^th in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York. According to that complaint, the Plaintiff received an LFIT V40 Femoral Head as part of the MDM X3 Mobile Bearing Hip System during a right total hip replacement in 2014, along with several other Stryker hip components. Shortly after her surgery, she began experiencing “pain ambulating including bending, climbing (and descending stairs), lifting movements, pushing, sitting, walking and standing,” and was forced to undergo total revision of her hip replacement.