Less than a month after our attorneys won a defective surgical device lawsuit on behalf of our client, Patricia Hammons, lawyers elsewhere also landed a major victory against another transvaginal mesh manufacturer.
For Hammons, transvaginal mesh surgery caused more harm than good. In fact, there have been so many victims of this medical device that defective product lawyers and scholars nationwide are beginning to refer to transvaginal mesh litigation as "one of the biggest U.S. mass torts in history."
They may be right, considering that our lawyers in Philadelphia won a $12.5 million verdict against Johnson & Johnson, whose Ethicon subsidiary manufactured the product that doctors unsuccessfully used to treat Hammons for a prolapsed bladder. Representing Hammons were Shanin Specter and Kila Baldwin of Kline & Specter, PC, and Adam Slater of the New Jersey law firm Mazie Slater Katz & Freeman, LLC.
This latest $2 million decision handed down by the Fourth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals against C.R. Bard, Inc., was damning for a similar transvaginal mesh product.
Victims in the lawsuit against Bard were Donna Cisson and her husband, Don. Doctors for Donna Cisson used Bard's Avaulta Plus surgical mesh product with hopes of correcting her pelvic organ prolapse.
Similar to our client, Bard's surgical mesh caused excruciating pain and loss of sexual function. The Cisson's case was among the first of thousands of transvaginal mesh lawsuits to be heard by a jury. The Cissons won their case despite the fact that Bard's attorney argued that its transvaginal mesh product was safe based on standards set forth by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Their lawsuit was initially decided in their favor by a jury in 2013 but was appealed by the defendant. The decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals makes it harder for the defendants and could start the ball rolling toward settlement for many of these cases.
Many more women nationwide have experienced serious complications in the wake of transvaginal mesh surgery. If you're one of them, the Pennsylvania medical malpractice and defective device lawyers at Kline & Specter, PC, can help. Please contact our Philadelphia offices online or by telephone for a consultation with one of our personal injury attorneys: 215-772-1000 or 800-243-1100.