Bard to Pay $500,000 in Third Bellwether Trial

Santa Clara, CAIn the third hernia mesh bellwether trial in multidistrict litigation, C.R. Bard and Davol Inc. were ordered by a federal jury to pay $500,00 to a Maine man who claimed his hernia mesh caused pain and other complications. The jurors found the company liable for failure to warn, strict liability, and negligence but Bard was off the hook for any punitive damages.

Plaintiff Aaron Stinson was implanted with an extra-large PerFix Plug mesh product in 2015. Just two years later, complaining of pain he had exploratory surgery to determine why he had constant leg and groin pain. His surgeon found the hernia mesh curled up in a ball of scarred tissue. Stinson claims in his lawsuit that Bard and Davol knew the PerFix Plug mesh was defective long before he had the hernia mesh surgery, but failed to warn patients and the medical community of the risks involved. According to Judge Sargus’s pretrial order, “The crux of Plaintiff’s claims is that Defendants knew of certain risks presented by the PerFix Plug device but marketed and sold the device despite these risks and without appropriate warnings, causing Plaintiff’s injuries… Plaintiff alleges that the polypropylene in the PerFix Plug degrades after implantation, which enhances the chronic inflammatory response in the body.”

Stinson further alleges that:

· The inflammation and resulting fibrosis was worsened by the shape, weight, and pore size of the mesh.  
· The PerFix Plug is susceptible to migration and has a high incidence of chronic pain.  
· Defendants downplayed the rate and severity of complications caused by the PerFix Plug, even when faced with reports of negative outcomes, which created an unreasonable risk of significant and permanent harm to patients.

Stinson’s allegations mirror more than 20,000 hernia mesh lawsuits claiming that different polypropylene products sold in recent years were unreasonably dangerous and defective, including the Bard PerFix Plug, the Bard Ventralight, Bard Ventralex, Bard 3DMax, and others. And most all individuals are still waiting for either a resolution to the litigation or the opportunity to present their cases to a jury.

Bard Bellwether Trials

The complaints filed in U.S. District Courts nationwide were centralized as part of a Bard Hernia Mesh MDL in August 2018, where U.S. District Judge Edmund A. Sargus has been presiding over coordinated discovery and a series of early bellwether trials in the Southern District of Ohio. The first two bellwether trials ended in mixed results: the first case ending in a win for Bard in August 2021, and the second bellwether trial resulted in a $225,000 verdict for the plaintiff in April 2022, reported AboutLawsuits.

The fourth bellwether mesh trial is slated for April 2024. Originally scheduled for January, it involves a Bard 3DMax lawsuit brought by Jacob Bryan. In 2018, Bryan filed a lawsuit after suffering complications, including mesh deformation and constant pain, from a 3DMax hernia mesh. These complications have led to a continued need for medical care and possibly further surgical intervention. Like the other hernia mesh complaints, Bryan alleges that Bard failed to provide adequate warnings about the risks associated with the 3DMax mesh, both to patients and healthcare professionals; neglecting to mention known risks and downplaying the possible severity and frequency of adverse effects. The lawsuit poses concerns about the design and manufacturing of the 3DMax mesh, and opines that flaws in these areas may have contributed to the severe complications experienced by patients.

According to the lawsuit information center, Bryan might require another surgery. Initially chosen by Bard as a bellwether trial some years ago, there was an unsuccessful push by the defendants to move Bryan out as a bellwether, arguing that he had more complications than originally anticipated. The MDL judge denied defendants’ motion to pull Bryan as a bellwether. No doubt Bryan is pleased with Stinson’s verdict in the third bellwether trial.