Stryker Hip Lawsuit News: Amended Order Sets New Deadlines for Bellwether Case Selection in Federal LFIT Femoral Head Litigation

Published on March 8, 2018 by Sandy Liebhard

The federal court overseeing hundreds of Stryker hip lawsuits involving allegedly defective LFIT Anatomic CoCr V40 Femoral Heads has set new deadlines for the selection of potential bellwether trial cases.

Selection of Bellwether Trial Cases to Be Completed by October 2018

According to an Amended Case Management Order filed in the U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts on March 2^nd, defendants and plaintiffs were each to have selected 9 Stryker hip lawsuits for inclusion in an Initial Bellwether Discovery Pool by February 14^th. Cases eligible for selection included those filed before December 12, 2017, in which the plaintiffs have served a substantially completed fact sheet by January 2^nd.

Any bellwether pool case that is dismissed by a Plaintiff before October 4, 2018, will be replaced by a case selected by the Defendants. Any case settled before October 4, 2018 will be replaced by a case selected by Plaintiffs. The parties are to meet and confer on the procedures for replacing any bellwether pool cases that are dismissed or settled after October 4^th, 2018.

“On September 4, 2018, each side shall submit a revised proposal to the court as to the number of bellwether cases to include in the Initial Bellwether Trial Pool, and shall address in said proposal whether the goals of the MDL, as set forth at Paragraph 3(b) of MDL Order No. 5 [#11], are better served by proceeding only with cases involving hip implant devices which Plaintiff alleges caused his or her injury, consisting in part of an LFIT V40 head and an Accolade TMZF stem, or whether any case involving an LFIT V40 head should be eligible for the Initial Bellwether Trial Pool,” the Order states.

The Court has indicated that it will adopt a process for selecting bellwether trial cases no later than October 5, 2018.

Stryker LFIT V0 Femoral Heads

More than 200 Stryker hip lawsuits involving LFIT V40 femoral heads are currently pending in the District of Massachusetts, where all federally-filed claims involving the allegedly defective implant have been centralized for coordinated pretrial proceedings.

Hundred of similar cases have been centralized in a multicounty litigation now underway in New Jersey’s Bergen County Superior Court.

Stryker’s LFIT V40 femoral heads were designed for use with several Stryker modular hip stems, including Accolade, ABG II, Citation TMZF HA, Exeter V40, Hipstar, Meridian PA, Rejuvenate, Reliance PF, and Restoration.  The the company recalled certain LFIT V40 components in August 2016, after the implants were found to suffer from higher-than-expected rates of taper lock failure.

The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) designated Stryker’s action a Class II recall, which indicates that the affected devices could cause temporary or medically reversible health effects. Patients who have received a recalled LFIT V40 femoral head may be at risk for:

• Loss of mobility
• Pain
• Inflammation
• Adverse local tissue reaction
• Dislocation
• Joint instability
• Bone fractures around the components
• Leg length discrepancy
• Need for revision surgery